


feels like home

by veterization



Category: The Voice (US) RPF, The Voice RPF
Genre: Blake's Family, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:27:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: Post-divorce, Blake's family is a little concerned about Blake being alone, especially for the holidays. So Blake does the logical thing and tells them he and Adam have started dating.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever worked on and stared at and edited a story for SO LONG that you start it hate it a little bit. WELL.
> 
> I will also very freely say that this story, while not an AU, relies very heavily on facts I totally made up, mostly about Blake's family, because (even though my morals are a lot less existent than most people's) I did feel a little creepy digging into their lives for the sake of accurate details. So regarding family member personalities, where they live, what life is like for them, etc, etc, that is all complete fiction. On another note, the writer in me is a little salty that Blake's stepdad and his brother-in-law are both named Mike. They made things a little bit harder for me there.
> 
> Lastly, this story was totally inspired by two things: 1) my love of the fake relationship trope and b) [that delicious interview where Blake asks Adam to spend the holidays in Oklahoma with him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6NsVYjomI).

It's pretty obvious that Blake's divorce hits him hard. 

He tries not to show it, staying tight-lipped whenever anybody brings it up and usually trying to laugh questions and condolences off with an offhand joke, but Adam's not an idiot, and he knows Blake well enough to figure out he's not doing well. It's not until Blake shows up at his door, his things in tow and the lines on his face particularly deeper than usual, that Adam realizes just how bad things actually are.

He talks a little more about everything after he starts staying at Adam's place. Sometimes they spend evenings playing guitar together, sometimes Blake stays cooped up in Adam's guest room, and sometimes they sit down to watch TV that ends up becoming white noise that they talk over, Blake telling him about how strange everything feels now that the divorce is finalized, how he's slightly lost as to what to do next, how he has no clue how it all went downhill so fast.

Adam knows that Blake has other friends, friends with just as much room and company to give as he can, so it does strike a pleasant chord in him that Blake chose his doorstep to land on. Besides, Blake never asks for favors. Of course he's going to do this for him.

Little does he fucking know, Blake isn't quite done asking for favors.

\--

For as much as Adam knows that Blake loves his family, his phone calls with them lately seem to completely drain him. 

Adam doesn't so much eavesdrop as he does happen to overhear a few conversations here and there, most of them clearly between Blake and his mom and consisting of Blake repeatedly assuring her that he's okay, he's not lonely, and that if nothing else, he has Adam around for company. The fact that every conversation seems to be a repeat of the last makes it evident that Blake's mother isn't even somewhat convinced of this or Blake's well-being.

The latest of these particular phone calls Adam listens in on while he's in the kitchen, preparing himself a sandwich while Blake sticks his head in the fridge, rummaging through Adam's groceries.

"—yeah, 'course," Blake's saying. "We wouldn't miss it." A pause. "Yeah, pretty sure he'd love it."

Adam, only halfway paying attention to the bread he's slicing, has to wonder who Blake is talking about, what plans he's making. He checks the calendar hanging by the fridge. It's already the middle of November, so there's a good chance it's Thanksgiving related.

"I'll text you when we're on our way," he says. "We'll see y'all soon. Love you."

He hangs up and closes the fridge door, looking less than pleased when Adam glances over at him. He sighs, the kind of sigh a man on death row might be letting out, and rakes a hand through his hair.

"You okay?" Adam asks. 

"Yeah," Blake says instantly, fast enough that it sounds more like habit than the truth. "Okay, no. I did—I did something kind of dumb."

"Gonna have to narrow that down."

Blake laughs, but the sound falls pretty short. There are stress lines on his face that Adam hasn't noticed before, the kitchen light strong enough for him to see the obvious trouble drawn over Blake's face.

"Can I talk to you about something?" Blake asks, voice hesitant in a way that it usually never is. Adam ponders the reasons, and considers for a quick moment that he might be dying. Someone who drinks that much liquor has to be cutting their lifetime in half at least. "When you have a moment?"

"Yeah, okay."

Blake looks like the last thing on earth he wants to be doing is having said talk, but also like he's resigned himself to realizing that there's no other options. 

"Listen," he says, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He draws his lips into his mouth, wetting them. "I know you had plans for the break, seeing your family for Thanksgiving. But I really need you to come down to Oklahoma with me."

"Why? Something happen?"

"Yes. No. Not exactly." Blake draws in a deep breath. "My mother's been real worried about me lately. Ever since me and Miranda, well. She thinks I'm in a slump."

He looks frustrated, like his mother is completely off base. Adam can't say that she totally is. Maybe he doesn't let it show on camera, but Adam thinks it's pretty undeniable that Blake hasn't been quite as obnoxiously chipper as he was a little while back, and it's really just been a slow descent since then, starting when Blake's marriage started getting rocky and completely snowballing when everybody found out about the divorce.

"She keeps pestering me about moving on and when I'm gonna be happy again and she wouldn't stop, hasn't for a while, and so." Blake runs a hand through his hair again, eyes fixed anywhere but Adam. "I told her that you and I started dating."

It sounds so much like a joke that Adam immediately laughs, because that's what Blake does, he teases Adam and he messes with Adam and he pulls Adam's leg for his own enjoyment, but the longer he laughs, the more he realizes that Blake isn't laughing with him, and oh. Oh shit.

"You're serious?"

"I am," Blake says. "I'm sorry, Adam. I didn't mean to say your name. To be honest, it just slipped out, and then she believed me, and I couldn't take it back."

"She believed that we were together?" Adam says. "Like a couple? Like a romantic couple?"

"Yeah."

Adam is still having trouble grasping that this isn't a massive prank and any moment Blake isn't going to double over with wheezing laughter, but he doesn't, and Adam is left to try and figure out how this is reality, how there's a world in which Blake called his mother, told her he had a boyfriend, said Adam was said boyfriend, and his mother easily believed him, like it wasn't even that crazy. Like it was _logical_.

"She wants you to come to Ada with me. Hell, my whole family does."

They _want him to come to Ada with Blake_. To examine him, no doubt, or even worse, dote on him because he's apparently Blake's boyfriend now, and that means he'll suddenly have to impress Blake's family instead of just hang out with them, be analyzed, appraised, checked to see if he's good enough. Oh god.

"I know this is a real weird situation, buddy, and I'd get it if you didn't want to come."

Adam rubs at his forehead. It's weird seeing Blake like this, all ashamed and meek and uncomfortable because he made a snap decision that ended up dragging Adam into the mud alongside him, practically _groveling_ , all of it such a sharp contrast to the way he's typically ribbing Adam and throwing around wisecracks and making fun. He sounds so much unlike himself that Adam can't help but give in.

"Okay, fine, I'll do it," he says. "I can't believe this is happening, but I'll do it."

\--

Adam gets up as ass o'clock to catch the flight Blake set up for them to take to Oklahoma, which seems uncomfortably like a bad omen when Adam can hardly muster the will to drag himself out of bed to even get dressed. Backing out doesn't really seem like an option anymore, though, and he throws on his travel hoodie and the comfiest sweatpants he owns and drags himself and his bags out the door.

The airport being a fucking nightmare seems like his second sign to turn around now while he still can. It seems like everybody and their dog is traveling for Thanksgiving, turning LAX into a nightmare of strollers, screaming children, bags being rolled over his feet, and generally not enough room for the amount of people all waiting in line to be flown out of town as quickly as possible. Adam lets Blake do all the talking and bag-checking at the counter while he considers falling asleep behind his sunglasses, every piece of bone marrow in his body already missing his bed.

By the time they're on the plane, Adam's low-key wishing he hadn't agreed to this mess. He could be on his way to his mother's house right now instead, where he would be surrounded by all the stuffing he could possibly want to eat and wouldn't have to pack a thermal coat to deal with the Midwestern cold. But he's not there, he's on his way to Oklahoma, neck pillow cushioning him from the window and Blake on his left untangling headphone strings.

"Okay, so what did you tell your mother? Specifically?" Adam asks once they're in the air.

"What, about us?" Blake asks. Adam nods. "Nothin'."

"Nothing? She didn't want to know anything?"

"She just seemed happy to know that I was happy, honestly. She wasn't grillin' me for details."

Adam can't believe how fucking flimsy this entire plan is. If they're going to pull this off, they can't be this haphazard about it. They have to actually cobble a plan together, a few specifics, a cohesive story that matches up in all the necessary places.

"Okay, well, we're gonna have to put some together," Adam says. He takes his neck pillow off and shoves it under the seat; he's pretty sure he won't be able to relax on this flight anymore. "We have to at least have the same story when your family asks."

"Right."

"All right, so. How long have we been together?"

Blake scratches his head, clearly trying to put together a number that sounds reasonable. This is so fucking weird. Adam really doesn't know how well all this is going to turn out once they get to Blake's house and actually have to start pretending they're deeply in love. It's one thing to sit down and put together ideas of who they are as a couple, how they touch, what they do, when they started dating, but it's another to put those words to use and make that story come to life. He has no clue how they're going to pull this off, and a part of him really wants off this plane.

"Three—no, four months. Right about when I started staying with you. Makes perfect sense," Blake says.

"Okay, so that's how it happened? You stayed with me and we... fell in love?"

"I guess so, yeah," Blake says. "I made a move on you a few weeks in and since you were already head over heels for me—"

"Hold up," Adam says, frowning. "First off, scratch that last bit. And secondly—why would you be the one to make a move?"

"'Cause you'd be too scared to, obviously."

"Are you kidding me?" Adam says, mouth falling open. "I have way more balls than you. I'd totally be the one making a move."

"In your dreams."

"No, actually, my dreams typically don't include me making moves on you, but you know what, fine," Adam says, crossing his arms. "You wanna say you started it? Okay. I thought this story was supposed to be believable."

"Dear lord, you're impossible," Blake says. "I shoulda asked freakin' Usher to pretend to date me."

"Whatever, man."

He pulls his hoodie down over his eyes to signify that he's done with this conversation and the delusional idea of Blake having the guts to make a move on him, doing his best to fall asleep. He doesn't, not quite, the vibration of the hard window against his scalp failing to lull him into any sort of comfortable slumber, but at least pretending to sleep is keeping Blake from yammering on about something or other. He's about to spend some nonstop, extremely intimate time with him; he needs these few hours of silence for himself.

\--

"So should I give you a hickey?" Blake asks while they're waiting at baggage claim once they land in Oklahoma. Even Oklahoma's airport is busy, but it's still a breath of fresh air compared to LAX. He jams his finger into Adam's neck. "Right there, maybe?"

"Get off," Adam says with no real heat.

"For believability, you know."

Adam doesn't respond, just digs his sunglasses out of his duffel and pushes them up his nose. He'd rather fly all the way back to California clinging onto the outside of the plane than have Blake suck a love bite on his neck for all the world to see, god forbid anybody in this airport record that happening, but he can't quite ignore that Blake's making a valid point with the believability of their lie perhaps needing some help. He has no clue how Blake's family is reacting to the idea of him and Adam dating. All he knows that Blake's mother is allegedly convinced, and even that seems more like an assumption on Blake's part than anything else. And even with all of Blake's usual teasing and sexual jokes and pulling Adam into his lap, there's a big difference between messing around with a buddy in a way that just straddles the fence between platonic and non-platonic and actually bringing home a boyfriend.

With a mild edge of panic, Adam starts considering exactly what lengths they'll have to reach to prove the legitimacy of their relationship. At best, a little hand holding here and there will be the extent of it, at worst—and his mind is really stretching to dark, unlikely places here—someone will demand that he and Blake lose their clothes and make out, with tongue, as evidence of the authenticity of their love. It sounds illegal and also a little soft-core-porn-ish, but Adam's trying to cover all of his bases here.

"How exactly did your mom sound?" Adam asks, touching his thumb to the strap on his duffel, sliding it up and down to keep his hands busy. "When you told her about us on the phone. Was she happy?"

"Darn thrilled, I'd say," Blake says.

"So she seemed like she bought into it?"

"Yeah. Acted like she totally already knew about it too, to be honest."

"About us going out?" Adam asks. "Why would she already know? Why—what the hell would give her that impression?

"I think I see it."

" _What?_ How?"

Blake points over to the bag carousel, giving Adam a funny look. "My suitcase, not. Not that." He doesn't leave to get it yet, though, hands sliding into the pockets of his jeans. "Are you nervous?"

About all this and the grand deception they're going to pull over Mama Shelton's eyes, a woman he is really not delighted to be lying to, to say nothing of the rest of Blake's family, yeah, he's a little nervous. He's just starting to think that maybe he didn't actually consider what was going into this, that it would be significantly more than just throwing out a tiny fib here and holding Blake's hand there and then moving on to other topics of conversation. 

He shrugs. "I'm fine," he says. Just wondering if he bit off a little more than he could chew here.

\--

Adam's met Blake's family before. They're all warm people who took to Adam instantly, saw immediately past the layers he puts up on himself like curtains for the media sometimes, and none of them take any shit, just like Blake. Adam really quite likes them all, too used to the brusqueness of Californians to not enjoy their Midwestern kindness, so it kind of sucks that he has to lie to their faces for the next few days.

He feels increasingly uncertain about this entire hoax the closer they get to the house, adjusting and readjusting over and over in the passenger seat of the rental car. How does he even know that he can do this convincingly? He's a shit actor, no matter what Blake tries to tell him, and he has no clue how to pretend to be Blake's boyfriend. All he knows how to do is mess with Blake, play around with Blake, be Blake's friend. Where does he even fucking begin here?

Blake seems to sense his unease, obviously has since they were in the airport, because he slows the car down to a crawl as he pulls off the main street and onto the gravel road leading to the house, stealing a few long glances in Adam's direction.

"We don't have to do this if you really don't want to," he says, which is exactly the kind of shit Adam was hoping he wouldn't say, because those moments when Blake gets all soft and kind and selfless, he can never resist him then.

Adam looks over at him, at his sad face he's trying to paint over with a sureness he's probably hoping will fool Adam, but it doesn't, and goddammit, he wants to help, even if he has no idea how it will in the long run. But Blake wants it, and if he needs time before he can date again, if he needs relief from his mother's smothering worry, then Adam would feel like a complete bastard to refuse.

"We'll do it," Adam says, still not sure how to, but they will. "Come on."

He unbuckles his seatbelt as Blake curves into the long familiar driveway, the big house standing tall next to it. Blake sneaks one more look at him after shutting the car off, as if still waiting for Adam to spook and back out. He grabs Adam's shoulder.

"You're sure?"

" _Yes_ , for the love of God, Blake, ask me that one more fucking time."

Blake sighs at that, presumably giving in, and climbs out of the front seat to heave their luggage out of the trunk. Adam slings his bag over his shoulder and looks down at Blake's hand, the one that isn't wrapped around a suitcase handle, and nudges it with his wrist.

"You wanna?" 

"What?" Blake looks down at the empty space between their hands. "Oh. Sure."

He grabs Adam's hand, weaving their fingers together, and Adam tries not to make a big deal out of it. He's held Blake's hand before, even on red carpets for shits and giggles, but somehow, amazingly, Blake's mama seems like an infinitely harder audience than a sea of fans and paparazzi. Blake doesn't seem to mind, though, tugging Adam up the drive, and by the time they're near the steps, the front door creaks open and Dorothy steps out, grinning from ear to ear.

"There's my boy!" she says, wrapping Blake into a hug the second he's close enough to hold, then immediately turns to Adam and gives him the same warm embrace, fingers slicking back the hair by Adam's ear when she pulls back in a soft, heart-wrenchingly maternal gesture. "Oh, Adam, it's so nice to see you. Come on in, y'all."

They step into the house, the smell of baking casseroles and apple pie wafting out from the kitchen and somehow making this place feel homier than Adam expected, some of his anxiety melting away into comfort.

"My goodness, are you boys skinny," Dorothy cries. "Blake, what on earth have you been eatin'? Sticks?"

"I'm fine, momma," Blake assures her. "And I'm sure I'll gain back whatever I lost with the help of all your food. Do I smell pie?"

"Yes, but it's bakin', so you'll have to wait a little." Dorothy walks over to the staircase, calling up the steps, "C'mon, y'all, Blake and Adam made it!"

Blake's hand is already sweaty in Adam's, but his grip is tight and nervous, too tight for Adam to even attempt to let go. His stepfather Mike comes down the stairs, followed by Blake's sister Endy and her husband Mike, all who look perfectly friendly but might as well be courtroom judges as far as Adam is concerned right now.

"Look who's back from Hollywood," Blake's father says, clapping Blake into a hug, at which point Blake finally lets go of Adam's hand and gives his bones a chance to relax back into position.

Hugs are had all around after that, Blake even rubbing Mike's bald head for a moment—turning to Adam only to say "see, now here's someone who can pull off a buzzcut, Adam, take notes"—before more of the tension eases out of Adam's shoulders. None of them seem ready to burn him at the stake and season him for food, which is reassuring if nothing else, because he came into this not knowing at all what to expect even though he's met all of them before.

It makes him think—possibly idiotically—that maybe none of this is going to be so bad.

\--

The guest room Dorothy leads them to is perfectly lovely, except for one small detail.

"Gosh, that's a small bed," Blake says, voicing Adam's thoughts to a T.

It's definitely no California King, that's for sure, and Adam is already experiencing flares of panic as he tries to figure out some way they can sanely share this bed for the next few nights. It looks like the kind of mattress a tiny elderly couple could be comfortable on assuming they're both under five feet tall, and Adam can't fathom even Blake alone being able to fit his entire broad frame on there, let alone both of them.

"It is," Adam says, mouth dry. "You don't think they really expect us to...?"

"Oh, I'm sure they do." Blake puts his bags down and sticks his head out the doorway, hollering, "Momma! There's a problem!"

Dorothy comes bustling in the room a minute later. "What is it?"

"How the hell are we supposed to sleep on this thing?"

"Oh, it's plenty big."

"For toddlers, maybe."

"Come on now. You're not King Kong, for Christ's sake," she tells Blake. "You'll fit."

She leaves again, that problem apparently solved. It isn't. Not even a little bit.

"I could..." Blake starts, then trails off, scratching the back of his head, apparently trying to come up with a viable solution and not quite figuring one out. "Well, maybe one of us. I guess we could—"

"It's okay," Adam finally cuts in. It's just a bed, they can fucking sleep on it. It'll be just like camp, or one of those shitty sleepovers where everybody crams into a tiny basement and hardly has their own patch of floor to curl up on. It's just _Blake_ , so really the worst thing that could happen here is that he wakes up with Blake's morning breath on his face and furnace of a body heating everything up to a boil.

"I mean, I could take the floor," Blake says anyway.

"No. Your old man back won't be able to take it," Adam says, throwing his duffel bag down next to the bed. "The left side is mine, though."

"I—" Blake starts, but he stops, exhaling carefully. He could just really want the left side, but from the look on his face, Adam is pretty sure he's regretting dragging Adam down with him like this. "Okay."

Adam watches him as they unpack a few things, the way Blake's shoulders are hunched together like a sad bear, and for God's sake, this isn't the worst thing that could ever happen. Adam just hopes to all things holy that there aren't any more surprises.

\--

They all settle down for dinner after he and Blake unpack a bit in the guest room. The table is loaded with comfort food and soft place-mats and a giant pitcher of ice tea, and Adam would be able to enjoy it and all the effort that went into it a lot more if he had even a single idea as to what everybody around him was thinking.

He's clueless. He can't tell if they all like him, or are being charming out of good-mannered hospitality but secretly want him gone as soon as possible, or aren't the slightest bit persuaded that this relationship between Adam and Blake is anything other than an elaborate prank. They're all certainly _looking_ at him a lot, which Blake seems to notice too, as he makes sure to keep at least one hand on Adam all the time, whether it's on his shoulder, or his back, or curled hesitantly around his wrist like he's not quite used to grabbing his hand. Adam can only imagine how weird they must look, how if he saw them, he'd be hard pressed to be convinced that this is real, unrehearsed love he's looking at.

Which is partly because Blake is clearly _thinking too hard_ about everything. For someone who touches Adam without a second thought all the damn time, he's definitely overthinking how he's supposed to be touching him now, how to make it look loving, how to make it look undeniably non-platonic. Adam would grab him by the bicep and tell him to fucking _relax_ already if that wouldn't look awfully strange to everybody sitting with them.

"So, you two," Endy croons from the other end of the table about halfway through dinner, smile coy, so wow, it really didn't take long for that to come up. "When did this become a thing?"

She points her fork at the two of them, grinning wildly, and as much as Adam would love to brush off these questions as quickly as possible, the entire family seems to be interested in hearing the responses, so he has little luck in pushing the relationship Q&A under the table where it will never be found, ever.

"Oh, um," Adam says slowly. "Recently. Like, four months ago."

"Little bit after I started staying with him, really," Blake adds.

"So y'all are living together now?"

"I mean—yeah. Yeah, we are."

It's technically true. Blake mentioned when he showed up with a truckload of his stuff that he'd try and get out of Adam's hair again as fast as possible, but Adam had waved that off, and sometime along the way, Blake stopped bringing it up. They never outright talked about it, but it was almost like an unspoken agreement between them that Blake was staying, at least for as long as he wanted, because Adam definitely had the room and enjoyed the company and didn't mind him hanging around.

So maybe they are living together, even if they never brought it up. Adam briefly considers what train of thought Endy's chugging down here and if it'll possibly make a few stops along questions like when is he proposing, and is there going to be ring exchange in the future, and is Adam thinking about making an honest man out of Blake soon, all questions that are making the inside of Adam's palms sweat and no one's even _asked_ them yet.

"And how's that going?" Mike asks.

"Pretty good," Adam says. "He's a good roommate. Except for him never helping with stuff around the house. Ever."

" _What?_ "

"Yeah, like—he'll use one of my dishes, which is fine, but then he'll just leaving it laying around. Even though cleaning it up would only take, like, five seconds."

"Blake, you know better than that," Dorothy says, pressing her lips together and shaking her head. "I didn't raise you to leave messes all over the place."

Blake seizes his napkin, holding it like a gavel. "Now, wait a minute, I'm not the only one with bad habits." He points at Adam. "Every single time I buy a case of beer, you're sneakin' bottles out. I know you are."

"Please. More like you drink them, and then forget you did," Adam says.

"Blake," Dorothy says sharply, grabbing Blake's wrist to shake it sternly. "You drinkin' that much?"

"You just had to drag me in front of my family, didn't you?" Blake says to Adam. "Don't worry, I'll get my payback when it's your momma we're sittin' in front of."

"I'll just make sure that never happens, then."

"Have you told your family yet, Adam?" Dorothy pipes in.

"About Blake?" Adam pushes another bite into his mouth to give himself a moment to chew and patchwork a believable answer together. "Not yet."

"What? How come?"

Well, the real reason is that Adam doesn't want Dorothy calling up his mom so they can gush about their sons being together and everything takes a sharp nosedive into the unsalvageable area. If this is going to work, they have to keep their little story contained. Like a fragile disease sure to spread like the plague if too many people catch it.

"I want to tell them in person," Adam says, honestly a little impressed with himself and his ability to pull bullshit straight out of his ass. "Over the phone would be kind of weird for me."

"Oh, I bet they'll all be happy for you," Dorothy says. "I was thrilled when Blake told me. Honestly, I've been waiting for it to happen."

Adam's mouthful of food very nearly goes down the wrong pipe for a second. "Waiting for—for us to get together?"

"Well, of course!"

"We all know a good thing when we see it," Endy says. "And besides, it took y'all long enough. How long did my brother have to stare at you for you to get the hint?"

"Hey now," Blake cuts in. He also sounds close to choking on his dinner, ears pink. "Nobody was staring at nobody, all right?"

"Oh, please, we see it on TV every week," Dorothy says, joining in on the torture. "All the teasing, too, it's like kids on a playground."

"That's just Adam being stupid. I can't help it if I have to call him out on it all the time."

"You are so dumb," Adam says in response, then wonders if they're really just proving everybody's point here. He looks around the table. "Just for the record, I hate him."

They all laugh. Adam can't help it; he laughs too.

\--

Adam's plan to sneak upstairs after dinner to call it an early evening, take a long bath, sleep off that airplane ickiness and all around avoid more Quality Boyfriend Time with Blake very quickly derails when Dorothy grabs him and insists he stay for a movie evening because it's _tradition_ and it's _fun_ and there's _plenty of room_.

There is not, however, plenty of room.

"Wow, thanks for leaving space for me, guys," Adam says, pointing at the very full, over-capacity couch that he unfortunately got to last like a very unfavorable game of Musical Chairs.

"There's still room left," Endy insists.

"Where, exactly?"

"Your boyfriend's lap is wide open," she says.

Adam looks at Blake, practically smelling the mortification radiating off of him. The tips of his ears are pink and Adam realizes, none-too-happily, that this is really only the beginning.

It's really not that bad yet, though. Adam's sat on Blake's lap before. He even once spent half of the Grammy's on Blake's lap. Never for the length of an entire movie, but in this house, they're a couple, and couples are comfortable with their thighs sandwiched together for hours on end.

He holds Blake's gaze, hopes he reads what Adam is intending for him to in his eyes— _you better go above and beyond with my birthday presents this year for this_ —and lowers himself into Blake's lap, which would be significantly more comfortable if Blake wasn't as tense as a wax figure.

Jesus Christ, what has Adam gotten himself into.

\--

It's not that Adam minds that the evening went off without a hitch. Really, he should be grateful that there weren't any moments when he broke out into a cold sweat because of a relationship question that threw him off guard. It's just that he doesn't understand _how_ it went so well.

"I think they're all genuinely convinced. I have no idea _why_ , but I think they are," Adam tells Blake as he strips his socks off. They're in the privacy of their guest room, but he keeps his voice low just in case the walls are thinner than they look. "They really believe that we're together."

"Is that so crazy?" Blake asks from the bathroom. "What with all the starin' you apparently do at me on TV—"

" _You're_ the one who stares," Adam says hotly. "Do you think they've really been waiting for this? Like, _expecting_ this?" Oh god, does his own family share the same mindset? Are they all deep in a secret conspiracy that Adam and Blake just haven't realized their feelings yet, but _any day now_.

Blake steps out of the bathroom, shutting the light off. "I don't know. I know it would take me by surprise."

"What, if I was your boyfriend?"

Blake laughs. "Well, yeah. If I woke up one day in a world where you were into me and sleeping naked on top of me and we were together, yeah, I'd be surprised."

"Sleeping naked on top of you?"

"That's just how I imagine you sleep. And then when you add me into the mix, it just makes sense."

"Okay, this—this conversation has gone into a weird place," Adam says, suddenly a little uncomfortable pulling off his pants for bed. He rummages around in his duffel, looking for the pair of pajama pants he knows he stuffed in there just in case. He was planning on just sleeping in his underwear, but that was before he knew he and Blake would be sharing a sardine can for a bed.

"Well, how would you react?" Blake asks.

"If I woke up in some alternate reality where we're dating?" Adam asks. He scratches his jaw, imagining it, and finds he has no good answer. At least not an entertaining one. "My first thought would be that you're trying to prank me."

Blake guffaws. "What? You seriously think I'd go as far as lying naked on top of you just for shits and giggles?"

"Could you—could you maybe stop talking about you lying naked on top of me?" Adam says. Honestly, the visual is more intense than he needs it to be. "Every time you bring it up, another batch of my brain cells dies."

"I'm just sayin', that'd be a pretty messed up prank."

"Yeah, I agree, so you better not pull it on me." He can't find the pajama pants. He was so sure he had packed them. "I don't know, I'd be... weirded out? I definitely wouldn't just start... going along with it."

"Now that hurts," Blake says. "You wouldn't pretend for me?"

"I—what? I'm done with this weirdass conversation," Adam says. He's checked every crevice of that damn bag. "Do you have pajamas I could borrow?" he asks over his shoulder.

"Yeah. Didn't you bring any?"

"I can't find them."

"Well, yeah. Hold on." 

Blake ends up offering a pair of his own that, even when they're just in Adam's hands, look like they could comfortably fit a man on stilts. Once he actually gets them on, they're much too long for his legs, a pool of fabric gathering by his feet, but he's not walking the red carpet in these, so they'll do.

"What on earth did you even eat as a child?" Adam asks, hitching up the hem of the pants to get into bed like a Victorian woman who has to lift her dress while she walks. "Steroids? Nothing but spinach? Fifty eggs every day?"

"Aw," Blake says. "Are you sad 'cause you're so short?"

Adam tugs his socks off and chucks them at Blake's head, grazing his temple, which is still the bull's eye as far as he's concerned. He gets in the bed, the sheets soft and the pillows fluffy, and watches as Blake does the same, although with a distinctly uncharacteristic timidity that makes him look like a child without floaties venturing into a pool. It looks so weird that Adam can hardly stand to see it happening, way too used to Blake's big bumbling body with its commanding strides and sure movements.

"Can we talk for a second about how much you need to fucking relax please?" Adam says, yanking him further into the bed so half his body isn't hanging off the side. "Tonight at dinner—you might as well have had a steel rod up your ass."

"What?" Blake says, affronted. "What d'you mean?"

"You looked so damn stiff just sitting next to me," Adam explains. "You touch me all the time, why is it suddenly so fucking hard for you?"

"Yeah, but—" Blake sighs. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

"If that's true, why the fuck did you invite me here in the first place?"

"I know I did, okay? Maybe I'm feelin' a little guilty here."

He does look awfully sheepish. Adam hates seeing him like that; he looks too thin with his shoulders hunched together like this, like some sad old bird that's regretting everything he's ever done. Blake's been sad for fucking _months_ , the least Adam can do is not add to that growing heap of depression by making things harder for him.

"Don't feel guilty," he says. "Look, I'm here. _We're_ here. And your family's going to know something's up if you think too hard about deflowering my virtue or some other shit like that every time you stand next to me and refuse to _loosen up_."

He reaches out to give Blake a quick knead through his shirt on his shoulders, massaging the tight muscles there. It relaxes Blake enough that he seems to resign himself into believing Adam's assurances.

"All right," Blake says. He clears his throat. "So what exactly is allowed here?"

"What's _allowed_?"

"Yeah. How can I—" Blake lifts a hand, gesturing almost shyly between them. "—touch you?"

Why is this something they have to talk about? Why can't they just wing it and hope for success? And why does this feel like it won't be the only awkward conversation they'll be having before this trip is over?

Adam swallows, wondering if it's audible, and tries to ensure it isn't by aggressively fluffing his pillows. "Just do whatever, man. Don't go overboard. Use common sense."

"See, that doesn't," Blake grumbles, trailing off. "That won't help me. Can you be specific here, Adam?"

"I don't know! This is my first time pretending to be someone's boyfriend, okay?" Adam says, a little hotly. He has been someone's actual boyfriend before though, so he tries to take some inspiration from there. "Hold my hand? Put your arm around me? Don't freak out when I sit on your lap? Stop acting like I have cooties?"

All stuff they typically do, Adam's brain points out for no reason at all. That's totally irrelevant.

Blake seems to ruminate over these ideas, like it's a math problem you have to slowly follow and worry about remainders and fractions when really, this is supposed to be a piece of cake. Okay, maybe not a piece of cake, a piece of cake is what Adam would be having if he were home with his mom right now, but it definitely shouldn't be _hard_.

"Can you do that?" Adam asks. "Do you think you can?"

"Yeah, fine, I can do it," Blake says. He points to the sheets they're under. "As long as while we're in here, you stay on your side."

Adam doesn't bother responding—he's positive that if one of them has a tendency to get grabby while asleep, it won’t be him, it’ll be Blake with those touchy hands of his—and slides down the bed into a comfortable position, the mattress's springs bouncing underneath him as he tries to get some shut eye. He supposes that this is somehow sweet, Blake worried about Adam's PDA comfort level, although it isn't a worry he's ever expressed while they're on national television.

Then again, being around family changes people. Turns them into mother-fearing little kids with a moral compass. This would probably be a good thing, if deception, dishonesty, and a lack of ethics wasn't key here on both of their parts.

\--

Miraculously, Adam doesn't wake up the next morning suffocating underneath Blake's heavy chest octopused over him. He wakes up extremely warm and unbelievably aware of the personal space—or lack thereof—between him and Blake on the bed, and the soft muscle of Blake's arm under his neck, but other than that, they've managed to make do with this veritable child's crib worth of room.

Blake's still in a pretty deep sleep when Adam's eyes first blink open, the sound of his snores proof of his undisturbed slumber. He looks relaxed, content, all the face's tension lines at peace, and it soothes Adam to see him without that sad crinkle between his eyes that's been showing up a lot lately. He's starting to think his mother was right about Blake being in a slump. He's just not sure if he helping Blake pretend he isn't will actually be the cure.

As strong as the urge to upturn a water bottle on Blake's sleeping face is, Adam keeps it at bay and decides to let him sleep, instead picking himself up gently from the bed and throwing a shirt on, the coolness in the air biting at him much more than a Californian morning would.

He comes down the stairs, nearly tripping over the hem of his pants because he forgets he's still in Blake's pajama bottoms, and it isn't until he's downstairs that he realizes what kind of message that must send, and if there's any way anybody will interpret it as something other than _we fucked last night and now we're stumbling around in each other's clothes_.

Dorothy sees him before he can turn around and put something respectable on, so that's the end of Adam's dignity.

"Morning, darling," Dorothy says from where she's standing in the kitchen peeling bananas in a plush pink robe. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah," Adam says, sliding into the kitchen. There are a few empty coffee mugs on the kitchen counter letting him know that he's not the first one to get up among the Shelton clan, along with a few plates piled in the sink and a folded newspaper on the table. "The mattress is great. Blake's still sleeping, actually."

"He needs it, that boy," she says, already sliding him a plate of food—fresh banana pancakes. "He works too much. I'm glad you're around to take care of him, I really am."

Adam feels a sting of discomfort at that, reminded all too easily again what role he's supposed to be playing here. For a moment, he wants to give in to the guilty impulse of admitting it all to be a lie Blake's spun together because he doesn't want to worry his family, but he can't, he won't say it out loud, rolling his lips into his mouth to avoid it. How are moms always like this? Adam's a fully grown man and he somehow still feels intimidated under Dorothy's eyes, like she's x-raying into his brain and seeing everything, like he's really just still ten years old and about to crack under parental pressure. 

"How're the pancakes, hun?" she asks, snapping him out of his paranoia.

"Delicious," Adam says, and that's a good idea, keeping his mouth stuffed with food to prevent himself from saying something he shouldn't, so he shovels another forkful into his mouth.

"It's nice to see you two together," she says, apparently not done, of course she isn't done, and Adam pushes more pancake past his lips. "It just looks good. And god knows Blake has been pining for years."

"I—what?"

"Oh, I'm sure he's too proud to admit it, I know how you two like to play with each other. But it's always been real obvious to me. And I raised that boy, I _know_."

"So... he hasn't told you that?"

"Darling, he never had to," Dorothy says, eyes perfectly serious. "You should hear the way he talks about you. Now, he must've sent us twenty of those magazines that you had on the cover. Sexiest man alive, right?"

"Oh my god," Adam says, coloring. He can feel the redness taking hostage of his entire face. "Did he really?"

"He sure did. He's... very proud of you, always has been." She smiles, and then her eyes focus on something above Adam's shoulder. "Why, good morning, sleepyhead."

Adam twists around to watch Blake amble down the stairs, also still dressed in his pajamas. He comes right up to the counter and drapes his arm around Adam's shoulder, briefly pressing his sleep-dry lips against Adam's temple.

"Morning," he says, seizing the rest of Adam's pancake off of his plate and popping it into his mouth. "Mm, anymore where those came from?" 

"Plenty more, so stop stealing from your boyfriend," Dorothy chides, sliding another pancake onto Adam's plate with a greasy spatula. "How'd you sleep?"

"Great, except that Adam couldn't stay on his side of the bed for the life of him."

" _I_ couldn't? Are you kidding me right now?"

"Yeah. With those skinny little knees of yours. Always right there," Blake says, reaching out to touch his right one before Adam swats his hand away. Then he immediately remembers that maybe he shouldn't be dodging any of Blake's playful attempts at touching, not when this is sort of the whole point, at least when people are watching, but then Dorothy laughs like she's more than amused by their antics, handing Blake his own pancake-stacked plate.

"You two are just the cutest," she says. She grabs a bottle of syrup and a plate of butter and slides it front of them, tapping her knuckles next to Blake's plate to get his attention. "Now you eat up, and be generous with that syrup. I've gotta fatten you up."

"Why? Preppin' to eat me for Thanksgiving dinner?"

"Nah, just takin' care of you," Dorothy says. She reaches out to squeeze Adam's wrist, shooting a wink in his direction. "Somebody's gotta do it, right?"

Adam gets what that wink implies, that he helps take care of Blake when she isn't around to do it. Blake's a grown man who takes care of himself, who certainly doesn't depend on people financially and does his best not to depend on anyone emotionally either, but maybe Adam has been taking care of him, if not in the conventional sense. He gave him a place to crash and a listening ear to talk to and a friend to rely on when things got rough, and he's also _doing this_ which he supposes is also taking care of Blake, albeit in a pretty twisted way.

It's what good friends do. Probably not all good friends would go to some of these lengths, but, well. It's got to be good karma.

"Hey, I take care of Adam too," Blake says, the pancakes in his mouth nearly drowning out his words. "Who do you think protects him from bear attacks?"

"Bear attacks?"

"They roam California, you know," he tells them. "And whenever they get too close, I come in and make sure you're safe."

"Yeah, all right, Animal Control," Adam says. "I'll keep that in mind the next time you ask me for a favor."

"You really should," Blake says. "I've saved your life so many damn times. Imagine how heartbroken the world would be if you were some bear's supper."

"You're an idiot," Adam whispers when Dorothy turns her back. "Do you ever think before you speak?"

"Eat your pancakes," Blake tells him, and shuts him up with a well-timed forkful of food to the mouth.

\--

Oklahoma is a fair bit cooler in November than it is in California, especially in the mornings.

It's nice. It's different. It makes Adam have to dig a sweater out of his bag to stay warm and double up on his socks, something Thanksgiving in Los Angeles never required of him. Even as a kid who grew up on the west side, always warm, always in short sleeves, Adam likes the colder weather. It's pleasant to breathe in, pleasant to soak in, and the fact that Ada is blissfully free of smog and dirty air makes it all the better.

He decides to take advantage of the refreshing air after breakfast, moving the yoga regime he was planning on doing in the guest room out onto the porch. The house's backyard is huge, nothing but grassy fields and uncut trees as far as the eye can see, and the lack of luxury replaced with clear, unbothered nature is satisfying to see, to be surrounded by, just like falling asleep last night without a single honking horn or any big city noise was.

He heads out the back door and lays his yoga mat out on the patio where the air is crisp but so fresh, taking in a deep, cool breath. He can feel in his shoulders how tense he is, how yesterday's flight and sleeping pretzeled up in that tiny bed and spending all of last night waiting for someone to call Blake and him out on their sham has pulled all the relaxation out of Adam's body and replaced it with knotted stress. He steps onto the mat and rolls his neck back and forth, trying to clear his mind, to focus on something that isn't what today is going to have in store for him.

He gets about halfway done with his usual morning routine when the porch door croaks open and Adam turns to see Blake's stepdad in the doorway with a steaming cup of coffee in hand.

"Oh," he grunts, eyes flicking from Adam to the mat beneath him.

"Sorry," Adam says, stepping out of his asana. "I thought I wouldn't disturb anybody out here."

"That's fine," Mike says. "I'll go inside."

He leaves before Adam even has a chance to offer to relocate, the door swinging shut again. That was definitely a little colder than what Adam is used to from Blake's stepfather. The few times they've met, he's always been a very friendly, very quick-witted fellow, just like Blake, with lots of questions for Adam and a genuine interest in him. It's obvious that some of that's changed, even though Adam isn't quite sure why, unless Mike is the type to believe everything he reads in the tabloids, which seems unlikely.

He felt it a little bit last night during dinner too, when Mike was suspiciously quiet while Endy and Dorothy were grilling the two of them about their relationship, asking this and that, Mike not his usual chatty self. Mike used to always be very eager to talk with Adam, ask him about his music, laugh with him about Blake's bad habits, and it's... odd that that's taken a turn.

He can think of a few reasons why Mike's reception of him has frosted over a bit, but he doesn't really want to dwell on them, even if it does feel like another bitter side effect to being Blake's pretend boyfriend that he hadn't considered.

\--

He gets a call from his brother after he's back upstairs and showered from his morning yoga, phone trilling on the bed while he towels himself off.

"Hey," Adam says, picking up the moment he sees _Michael_ flash up on the screen. "You call to yell at me on mom's behalf for not being home for Thanksgiving?"

"Hey, we're nicer people than that," Michael says. "Mom just asked me to check in."

"Right. That's likely."

"C'mon, we just want to see if you're doing okay. Something big must've come up for you to miss mom's homemade cranberries."

"Yeah, and I'm missing them every second," Adam tells him, knotting the towel into place around his waist. "I had to help Blake out. I went to Oklahoma with him."

"Is he okay?"

"Well, sort of, yeah," Adam says. He takes a moment to weigh his options and figure out if telling Michael the truth is a good idea or not. He goes for something wedged in the middle between honesty and dragging him down too into the audience of this scheme. "He's been... struggling a bit since his divorce and things have been tough on him. I just want to help him out."

"Well, that's nice."

Oh, screw it. It's _Michael_. Dragging each other into each other's shit is practically in the brother job description.

"I'm also pretending to be his boyfriend, but, you know."

Hearing his own mouth say it out loud makes it that much worse. He pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut as if to shield himself from seeing his own reality, now fully immersed in the sheer dumbness of this idea since he's heard it with his own ears.

"Wait. You're what now?"

"It's for his mom," Adam says, which really doesn't explain a thing, only makes all this sound that much weirder. "He's just—he's going through a rough time and his family has been grilling him about it and finding someone to be with and he just... said he was dating me."

"Uh huh."

"It's not like that," Adam says, already perfectly aware of what Michael must be thinking right now. He's wrong, he's completely wrong. "I'm only doing it as a favor to him."

"Awfully big favor."

"Would you stop leaping to conclusions?" 

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to," Adam says. "I can tell exactly where is your mind is going here and Blake's not interested in me. I'm sure of that much."

"And you?" Michael asks.

"Me what?

"Are you interested in Blake?"

"Is this even—are you seriously asking me this?" Adam says, resisting the urge to chuckle. "It's _Blake_. I've known the guy forever."

"Yeah, and?"

"Look, can we just move on to actual reality for a second?" Adam asks, feeling oddly prickled by this conversation and where it's going. "I've barely arrived here and the last few days have already been the weirdest of my life."

"How's that?"

Adam thinks the entire fake-boyfriend-ruse is pretty weird and should answer that question on its own, but all right.

"I—I don't know, it's like I'm some kind of different dimension," he says. "Everybody just _believes_ it. Just fully accepts that Blake and I are having sex, no questions asked."

"You expected questions about that?"

A hysterical burst of laughter comes out of his mouth. "I mean, at least _suspicion_. And there's been none. At all." Adam lowers himself to the bed, quieting his voice a smidgen. "If I came over one day and told you I was in love with Blake, would you believe me? Or think I had gone fucking insane?"

"It's not like it would be the craziest thing in the world."

"Seriously?" Is everybody just seeing something that he isn't? Are he and Blake the odd ones out here since everybody else is so easily accepting, so quickly persuaded that this relationship between them was inevitable and obvious from the start? What the _fuck_ is everyone else seeing? "Why? I'm being serious here, why do you say that?"

"Why _not_?" Michael presses. "Look, if you're not attracted to him, that's fine, but." He takes a breath, clearly trying to word this delicately. "You spend a ton of time with him. You get along super well. You look at him like he's the coolest person you know. And he's always looking for excuses to touch you."

Adam has no valid response outside of stammers; it's like everyone around him has gone completely off their collective rocker. 

"That's—all that's because we're _friends_ ," Adam says. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

"I haven't actively been thinking about you and Blake having sex, if that's what you're asking," Michael says slowly. "All I'm saying is that if you did one day tell me as much, I wouldn't be shocked out of my seat." He pauses, the noise he makes almost apologetic, like he's thinking about how much simpler this conversation could've been had he not gone down this road. Adam can only agree. "Have _you_ been thinking about it?"

No, Adam hasn't. Okay, fine, maybe in passing whenever interviewers wouldn't relent on the goddamn bromance questions, and maybe a lot more ever since they started up this whole disaster, especially since that night Blake asked how he would react to waking up in a world where they're unexplainably a couple. The truth is, if it's anything like their friendship, plus sex, it wouldn't be that bad. Maybe even great, considering how well they get along, and how easy it's been for Adam pretending to be in love with him, and how persuaded everybody is that they've been putting this off for ages, and—

Fuck, he needs to stop going down this road, _now_.

Heavy footsteps outside the door and the knob turning reminds Adam of the situation at hand, not the crisis in his mind, and he thinks about how fucking nightmarish it would be to have Blake catching him on the phone with Michael having an in-depth conversation about the subtext of his and Blake's friendship. Hell no.

"Shit," Adam mumbles as the door opens. "I gotta go. Give mom a hug for me."

He ends the call just as Blake steps in the room, feeling inexplicably like he just broke the rules by telling Michael about their subterfuge and also a little hot in the face because they just happened to be talking about the fact that Adam and Blake dating is more reasonable than it is outlandish, which is something he very much hopes Blake didn't overhear from the other side of the door.

"Hey." His eyes flick down to where Adam still has nothing but a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. "For the love of God, would you put some clothes on? There are innocent eyes about."

"Grow up, Shelton," Adam says, getting to his feet. "I don't see any around here."

"Were you on the phone?"

"Yeah. With Michael."

"He doin' okay?"

Adam looks down at the phone, hearing Michael's voice in his ear despite himself— _it's not like it would be the craziest thing in the world_ —and feeling the back of his neck heat up like the sun's boiling on it. "He's fine. He, uh. He says hi, wishes you a happy Thanksgiving."

"Tell him hi back when you talk to him again," Blake says, Adam all the while thinking that there's no fucking way he's calling Michael again while he's here, not after that fresh hell of a conversation just opened a scab wound for him to pick at for days. "You wanna come downstairs? Endy just broke out some board games."

"Yeah," Adam says. "Let me just get dressed."

"That would be preferable."

Adam pushes him out the door, heading back into the bathroom to hang up his towel. There's still steam on the mirror, and without thinking twice about it, Adam leans in and writes _Blake sucks_ on it with his finger. After that phone call, it feels like something he absolutely has to do, just to feel like himself again.

\--

"I'm doing better today, right?" Blake asks when they slip into bed that night. "Not so uncomfortable anymore?"

"Yeah. You got out of your head," Adam admits. It's almost a little startling just how quickly Blake shed his rigidity and fell into a believable casualness with their relationship today. He touched Adam's knee all during lunch, and he kissed his temple in apology each time he beat Adam at Uno, and he ducked close every time Adam murmured something to him so he'd have to little more than whisper in his ear.

"Yeah. It occurred to me that you've done a lot dirtier than have a guy hold your hand now and then, so I figured you can handle this."

"Charming," Adam says dryly. "You're so charming."

\--

There's a tiny little ripple in Blake's skin right on the underside of his wrist, white, healed skin knitted together over the curve of his wrist none and trailing all the way up to an underarm tendon. Adam's never noticed it before.

"You have a scar," Adam says, voice still thick from sleep. "How'd it happen?"

"Which one?" Blake asks, shifting on the bed. His eyes are half-lidded, the presence of slumber recently shaken off still there, but what's visible is very blue, very bright blue. Something about the morning sunlight in the guest room seems to illuminate everything, almost unforgivingly.

Adam traces it with his index finger, following the line and feeling along the roughness of the beveled skin where the scar sits. 

"That one," he says. "On your wrist."

"Think a barbed wire fence got me," Blake says. "I was like, fourteen years old and my friends at the time convinced me to climb over a fence into private property. I lost my balance and made a grab and my arm just went down in the wrong spot."

"That is spectacularly stupid," Adam says, but he's smiling. "Why were you breaking into private property again, you big ol' delinquent?"

"Some old lady lived there who everybody said was a witch, and I was supposed to check. Here." He rolls onto his back, tilting his other arm until Adam can see the elbow. There's a scar there too, this one harder to see. "That one came from working on my dad's truck one summer."

"Yeah? Where are all the scars that came from you mishandling guns and bullets grazing you?"

"Hilarious."

"I'd be happy with just a bite mark from a deer trying to get even with you. Just like—taking a big bite out of you."

"Tough luck," Blake says. He seizes Adam's hand, guiding his thumb up to his jaw and pressing it against the side of his neck where his facial hair is tapering off. "Feel that one?"

"Yeah."

"From when Richie taught me how to shave," Blake tells him. "I was bleedin' for so long I thought I was literally gonna die because of a straight razor."

Adam grabs Blake's wrist and pulls it up to his ear until Blake touches the shell of it, right where a jagged little scar is dug in.

"Really bad piercing experience," he explains. "Basically, never let someone piercing body parts out of a van get near you with a needle."

"You needed to learn that through experience?" Blake asks, incredulous. "You're a doofus, you know that?"

"I'm the doofus? At least I never climbed a barbed wire fence just to break into some poor old lady's house."

"I haven't even shown you my stupidest one yet," Blake says. "Although you'd probably have to buy me a drink first before I show it to you."

"Oh my god. I don't want to see it, ever. As a matter of fact, I don't ever want to hear you talk about it again either."

"You sure are a big prude for a city boy," Blake says. "Come on, don't you have any scars in weird places?"

"Yeah, and notice how I'm keeping them to myself."

"What about that one on your lower back?" Blake asks.

"What? How do you even know about that one?"

"Sometimes when you raise your arms and stretch—your shirt goes up a little and I see it."

Is it weird that he notices that? Adam can't decide. He readjusts, rolling gently back and forth on his back as if to wipe the scar there away. "Fell off my bike," he says. "This big nasty rock on the sidewalk sliced right through my shirt."

"Ouch," Blake says. "Can't ride a bike?"

"I can _ride a bike_ , dickhead. I was like, nine years old."

"It took you until you were nine to learn how to ride a bike?"

Adam tries to shove him off the bed. He doesn't fall off, but he does teeter a little, which is good enough. "Five stitches, jackass," Adam tells him.

"Am I supposed to applaud now?"

"You're supposed to shut up."

"Hold on," Blake says. He pulls the collar of his shirt down enough to expose his shoulder, where, curving onto his backside, a white scar—probably his biggest—trails down his skin. He smiles, like he's laying down an ace. "I see your five stitches, and raise you seven."

Adam touches it, rubbing his thumb over the hardened skin. "How'd that happen?" His lips quirk upwards. "Bear attack?"

"Dog bite," Blake admits. "Hurt like a bitch."

"You cried, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little."

Adam smirks, pulling his hand back. The scar tissue is pale against Blake's skin, almost like a wave of a white lightning bolt imprinted onto his flesh. Adam read once that after a scar is made and the healing process begins, scar tissue is created, and it's tougher than the original skin beneath it. Not prettier, but stronger.

He wonders where Blake is with his other scars, not his physical ones, but rather the ones left behind by his divorce, the ones that hurt a lot longer than the ones that bleed and you can bandage up. Adam thinks, a little hollowly, that Blake probably hasn't even started healing yet. If he had, he would've been able to handle his mother's pestering, his being alone, his new single life. Adam being here, what part is he playing? Is he the bandage, just covering up the gnarly pain so no one has to see it? Or is he the stitches, encouraging the mending, making things better, slowly but surely?

"How long did it take to heal?" Adam asks as Blake lets go of his shirt, the fabric covering up the scar on his shoulder again.

"All damn summer," Blake says.

"You mind the scar?"

"Used to. Not so much anymore." Blake peels the shirt out of the way again to catch another glimpse. "I don't know, I think it's kind of neat, honestly. It makes me look badass and it's got an interesting story behind it."

"Hate to break it to you," Adam says. "But nothing could make you look badass, Blake. Literally nothing."

He slips out of the bed before Blake can repay the favor and try to push him out, snickering as he grabs his clothes. All kidding aside, Blake's scars are pretty cool, each one like a tiny souvenir from his past billboarded on his body, just like tattoos, in that way. Adam just hopes he can appreciate the emotional ones the same way he does the physical ones one day. 

\--

He runs into Mike again during yoga. He probably should've done it upstairs, avoided stepping in on any morning routine he has with drinking his coffee outdoors on the patio swing, but he had almost forgotten about yesterday's weird encounter—up until it happens again.

He's in the middle of a warrior stretch when Mike comes out, the door announcing his presence as it squeaks shut.

"You do this every morning?" he asks.

"Uh, sort of," Adam says. "I can move if you want." He's already kneeling down and rolling up his mat when Mike steps closer, waving his hand in dismissal.

"Stay where you are," he says. He still sounds strangely gruff, but he doesn't head straight back indoors again like yesterday, instead settling into one of the lawn chairs with his mug in hand.

Adam stays, but the flow he had in his routine is broken, and he has to admit, he's not too keen on the idea of continuing his regime while Mike sits and watches like a king surveying his entertainment. Something about him seems oddly judgmental, if not disturbingly cool towards Adam, and it'd be one thing if it only happened once, but this is the third time now, and Adam can't just dismiss this anymore as some recurring bad mood fluke.

He feels like he ought to say something, approach and see if he and Mike can hash this out, whatever it even is that rubs Mike the wrong way about him, but he's not sure how to go about it, what to say. _Does it bother you that I'm not a woman? Do you think I'm just fucking around with Blake? Are you mad that I'm here so soon when the tan line on Blake's ring finger hasn't even faded yet?_ He normally has no problem being blunt to someone's face, but this is someone's _parent_ , Blake's parent, not some sycophantic reporter jabbing a microphone in his face. He has to have at least a semblance of tact here.

"You want to join me?" Adam finally decides to ask.

Mike looks at him like he's surprised that he's asking, eyes lingering on the yoga mat before he shakes his head, taking a long sip from his mug.

"No, thanks," he says, but the acerbity in his voice has tenderized a slight fraction. "Don't think that's for me."

"It's for anybody," Adam tells him. "But if you change your mind, let me know."

He holds Mike's gaze for a few solid moments, giving him the chance to do so, to crack a smile and whittle down some of the distance he's put between them, but Mike stays where he is, hands firm on his mug. He wants to fix this, to figure out a solution to whatever problem Mike is fixated on, but he isn't sure he knows where to start, or if there's even a solution out there.

\--

His yoga session ends pretty quickly after that, and he heads back upstairs to shower and throw on a few layers since it's promising to be another cold November day, his mind caught up in Mike's frosty reception of him the whole time he lathers up under the hot spray. He sees Blake out in the driveway from the guest room window while he's digging a thick cardigan out of his bag, Blake lugging branches that have snapped off of the brittle trees and fallen into the yard in the garage to use as kindling for the fireplace.

It makes Adam want a cigarette, watching Blake's cold breath puff out of his mouth like white smoke, and so he grabs his jacket and heads out the front door. The air has gotten even fresher, now cold enough to pinch his lungs when he breathes in.

"Hey," he says, fishing a cigarette out of his pocket as he walks down the front steps. Blake's done collecting wood, eyes drawn off in the distance instead as he stands still at the foot of the driveway. "We all gonna sit by the fire and read Shakespeare together tonight?"

"Shakespeare?"

"That too literary for you?" Adam asks, smirking around his cigarette. He cups the end of it as he lights it up, protecting it from the bitter wind. It's colder out here than he expected. "How about Hunting 101?"

"You're shakin', you know that?" Blake says. "Didn't you bring any sensible winter clothes? You're too scrawny not to be bundled up."

"Fuck you," Adam says, exhaling a wisp of cold smoke through his teeth. "I had a weird morning. I wanted some fresh air."

Blake flicks the side of his cigarette. "Looks real fresh to me." At Adam's sidelong glare, he adds, "Why's your morning weird?"

"Your stepdad doesn't like me," Adam says.

"Why? What'd you do?"

"Nothing. He was fine the last time I came here with you, and now he's all... distant." He crosses his arms over his chest, digging his fists into the crooks of his elbows. "He probably misses Miranda."

Blake stills; Adam can see a line of tension in his shoulders. It eases away a bit with the breath he lets out. "He's probably just not used to the idea of me with you. Like that."

"Yeah," Adam says, scuffing his shoe against the driveway. Not for the first time, he can't help but wonder if playing up this nonexistent relationship is actually worth the trouble, or if it's just creating more messes for Blake to pick up in the end.

"Do you see that stretch of land right over—that way?" Blake asks, cutting into Adam's train of thought. 

"Yeah?"

"There's a creek over that way," Blake says, pointing into the distance, "where I had my first kiss. It was right near our house. Or what was our house at the time, anyway."

"You miss it?"

Blake lifts his shoulders, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets and staring out into the distance as if he could see the house if he squints enough. "Eh, sort of. It's where I grew up. But I'm glad I was able to buy 'em a better place."

Adam turns around to grab a glance at the house behind them again. It's nice. He knows that Blake didn't grow up with money, consistently made jokes about just how little there was to do as a kid, how special it was to wake up on Christmas morning and see what was there under the tree. Adam knows so many people who are so damn stupid with their money, who revel in it and gloat about it and then end up wasting it, but he knows that Blake wasn't and won't ever be one of those people. Seeing the house and the security and the life he secured for his family, really appreciating it, lets that soak in a little bit.

"You have to imagine this nice little house with shutters on the windows and lots of grass," Blake says, hands high like he's gesturing to a real house sitting in front of them. "Oh, and a big ol' banged up pick-up in the driveway that I got as my first car. That I ended up having to learn how to drive, too, 'cause it was a standard."

He's smiling as he talks. Adam can practically see it for a moment too, the old car, the small home, the big aging trees in the yard throwing shade over the driveway.

"We should go check it out," Adam suggests. He taps the gathering ash off the tip of his cigarette. "You should see it again."

"What?"

"C'mon. It can't be that far away, is it?"

"Well, no, but. It's the day before Thanksgiving, Adam."

"Yeah, so somebody'll be home to open up. Don't you wanna take a look at what it looks like now?"

"You really wanna see it?" Blake asks, sounding incredulous.

Adam shrugs. "Yeah. Don't you?"

"Yeah." He seems to give in, chuckling, and pulls his hands out of his pockets. "All right. I'll go get my keys."

\--

The woman who lives in Blake's old house is more than happy to let them come in and look around. She's a sweet older lady with lace, crochet work, and pictures of her grandchildren all around the place, and she seems to have a vague inkling about who Blake is.

"Say, you're that country singer who grew up around here, aren't you?" she asks. She has a soft, tinkling little laugh that makes Adam smile. "I think I've heard you on the radio a time or two."

"Yes, ma'am, that might've been me," Black says. He has to hunch his shoulders to talk to her, his frame almost too tall for the tiny kitchen, and Adam tries to imagine Blake running around here as a kid, skidding on the hardwood floors in woolen socks, sitting around the dining room table with his siblings.

"Are you a country star too, my dear?" the woman asks Adam.

At Blake's derisive snort, Adam socks him in the shoulder. "Uh, no," he tells her.

"He wishes," Blake cuts in.

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah, takes one to know one."

"You two are just darling," the woman says, chortling. "How long have you been friends?"

"Boyfriends, actually," Adam says, and he doesn't know why he says it, but it just comes out before he can stop it. It's totally unnecessary, certainly not something he has to do to keep up appearances for Blake's family—what even are the chances that any of them will run into this woman and then start jawing about Blake and Adam's relationship—but Adam just says it, just puts it out there. He feels Blake's eyes on him but doesn't meet his gaze. "But, uh. We've been friends for a long time. A few years."

"Feels like an eternity, though," Blake says. He sighs, all very long-sufferingly, and drapes his arm around Adam's shoulder, pulling him in close. "Just can't seem to shake him."

"Shake me?" He pushes his elbow into Blake's stomach. "Would you stop talking about me like I'm not the best thing that ever happened to you?"

"Ignore the ego on this one," Blake says loudly. "You know, my bedroom used to be the third from the left upstairs. Mind if we take a look?"

"Not at all."

They head upstairs together at her consent. She stays behind to putter around the kitchen, but a part of Adam wishes she was coming along if only to keep the two of them from being alone. The entire time they're walking up the croaky stairs, Adam waits for Blake to bring up his slip, to ask why he told that woman they're together, and Adam won't have an answer. 

The truth is, the more people he ropes into this lie, the harder it'll be to peel himself out of it. When Blake first told him about the plan—go to Oklahoma, fib to his family for a few days—it seemed so simple, if not uncomfortable, but it's starting to hit Adam just how many repercussions this could have. What happens if news spread? What if that little old lady downstairs happens to be savvy with Twitter and starts telling everybody about what she just heard? What if all this stretches a lot further than just a tiny town in Oklahoma?

"Man, it's weird being back here," Blake says, pulling Adam out of that pessimistic hole, apparently not bothered by Adam's impromptu reveal. "Really weird."

"Is it like you remembered?"

"I think she painted the walls," Blake says. "And I could've sworn this hallway was bigger."

Adam bumps their shoulders. "Or you just got massive," he says, grinning. "Unless you were this tall at thirteen."

"Almost," Blake says, then eases the door open to his old room.

It's a tiny room. She must use it as a spare room now, because not much is in it except for a queen bed draped with a floral comforter, a tall wooden armoire in the corner, and drapes that have been slanted over the window, casting dim sunlight onto the bedsheets. Blake lets out a slow breath.

"Wow," he says. "Now this—this is just like I remember it." He walks over to where the wardrobe is and points at the ground around it. "That's where I always kept my guitar. It was a dinky little thing, I remember that much. My uncle taught me how to use it."

Adam can see it, how this room would've looked all those years ago. What Blake would've put on the walls. How messy his bed would be. Where all his clothes would be strewn on the floor. What he'd look like sitting on the carpet, strumming his guitar, fingers clumsy at first. Blake points around the room, showing him where he had his bed, where he kept his backpack, where his shoes were stacked together.

"And here," Blake says, waving Adam over to the spot right by the window. "Look at this."

Adam walks over to him. Blake takes his hand, guiding his index finger against a small nick in the wall.

"You feel that? I almost chipped a tooth on this wall."

"Yeah? How'd that happen?"

"First time Richie brought me booze," he admits, a sad little look on his face that always seems to shadow over his eyes whenever he talks about his brother. "He got me beer and some shitty whiskey and we got drunk in here."

"How was that?"

"Terrible," Blake admits on a loud laugh. "I told him I wouldn't ever drink again after I threw up twice in the garden. Little did I know."

"What, that you'd become a total alcoholic?"

Blake digs his elbow into Adam's side. "Hey, I'm a grown man. I can enjoy a nice drink here and there."

"Or all the time."

"C'mere," Blake says, grabbing Adam's arm and pulling him closer to the window, pulling the drapes aside. "Look—behind that big tree. That's the creek."

"Your first kiss creek?"

"You better believe it."

Blake keeps his eyes on it for a while. Adam guesses he's reliving it, trying to remember what his younger self had been feeling, thinking back on the nuances of the memory. There's a part of Adam that doesn't want him to be thinking about it, wants him instead to be focused on the here and now, wants that to be just as exciting as standing by a creek with a pretty girl who gave him his first kiss.

It's a weird thought.

"Well," Adam says, clapping Blake on the shoulder. "Here's to many more kisses, am I right?"

Blake looks at him, gives him a little smile. "Let's hope so."

\--

"Where'd y'all go?" Dorothy asks when they make it back, both of them shrugging off their coats in the entryway.

"Over to our old house," Blake says. "Wanted to show Adam the place. Nice lady lives there now."

"How sweet," she says. "Sounds romantic."

"I don't know, momma, lady was pretty old."

"I'm talkin' about you and Adam," Dorothy says, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. "Showin' him your childhood home, your roots. Always nice to see where a person came from."

"That’s Blake. Total romantic."

"You think I’m romantic?" Blake asks. He looks pleasantly surprised.

He doesn’t know. Well—Adam thinks he would be. If this were real and meant something, then yeah, he would probably be one of those mythical people who were taught Southern charm as a child and want to make dates special with wildflower bouquets and cheesy mixtapes. And then, in a surprising twist, after all the romance, there’d be filthy, fantastic sex.

Not that Adam knows any of that for sure. He’s just guessing here.

"Uh, yeah, " he says. "You’re a regular Romeo." He turns to Dorothy. "What’s for dinner? Something smells amazing."

\--

When Adam wakes up the next morning, the bed is empty beside him.

He realizes as much when his arm slips out to feel for Blake and comes up short, nothing but cool linens and vacant space touching his fingers. He pries his eyes open after that, and there, standing in front of the floor length mirror by the door, Blake is staring at himself, eyebrows knitted together.

"Vain much?" Adam asks, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

Blake whips around instantly, clearly surprised. "Jesus, thought you were asleep."

"Just woke up," Adam says. "You do this every morning or what?"

Blake ignores his question, scooting back into the view of the mirror. He definitely doesn't seem to be appraising himself, not with that displeased pull to his brow, and Adam watches as his eyes flick down his figure slowly, the unhappy creases on his forehead only deepening along the way.

"Worst and best thing about being home is my momma's cooking," Blake says. "Pretty sure I already gained all of my divorce weight back in the last few days."

"Blake, you're being stupid," Adam mumbles. It's too early in the morning for him to be anything but honest, the words blurting out. "You're not—you're fine as hell, okay? Stop thinking you're not."

He buries himself back into the pillow, not quite sure he's ready to wake up yet when his body seems to still be half-tangled in sleep. Blake's short huff of laughter keeps him from drifting off.

"Fine as hell?" he repeats. "By all means, continue."

"You're an idiot," Adam says. 

"No, really. I'm glad you're finally taking your boyfriendly duties seriously," Blake says, clearly having fun with this, especially the bit where he gets to bug Adam when he's trying to sleep. He shakes Adam's ankle through the sheets, trying to wake him. Or annoy him. Probably both. "A compliment here and there would be real nice."

"They seriously don't come any dumber than you," Adam grumbles into the pillow. "You know you're hot, Blake."

Honestly, how could he not? He's tall enough to climb like a fucking tree and has those stupidly nice blue eyes and a genuine smile that Adam can't even look at without mirroring it, and if he's seriously self-conscious and not just kidding around here, Adam has trouble believing he's using mirrors correctly. Then again, the divorce has definitely done a number on his brain, rattling it up and making off with a fair amount of confidence, so maybe Adam really should remind Blake now and again that he has nothing to be insecure about.

And just when he's considering this, considering _being nice_ to Blake, Blake stomps the hell out of that idea as he jerks him fully awake by abruptly flipping him over and pinning his wrists to the bed, looming over him.

"C'mon, throw your boyfriend a bone here," he says. "Tell me I'm sexy."

"Oh my god," Adam says, squinting against the sunlight. "Stop it with that. We're alone."

They are, aren't they? A quick pulse of alarm runs through him, and he opens his eyes to make sure he's right, that nobody else is in the room with them right now listening to Adam. There isn't, it's just the two of them, so yeah, there really isn't any need for that lovey-dovey nonsense. He tries to wriggle out from Blake's hold on his forearms, but he's frustratingly strong.

"Come on," Adam says, giving in and laying still when struggling proves moot. "You know that there's a bunch of redneck girls out there who think about your face before they go to sleep at night."

Blake chuckles. "Redneck girls?"

"Yeah. Now get off of me."

"C'mon, you can do better than that," Blake insists. "You think about me before you fall asleep? Be honest, now."

"You should be glad you're good looking, Blake, because you have absolutely no brains," Adam tells him. Blake's close enough that he practically has to go cross-eyed just to keep him in focus, and it's making him strangely nervous, having Blake this close when no one's around, close enough to count every hair in his beard. "None whatsoever."

"You're a lousy boyfriend, you know that?" Blake says. He lets go of Adam's wrists and backs up, leaving him fully awake and slightly confused for reasons he can't pin down. "Good thing this relationship has an expiration date."

"Yeah," Adam says. "Good thing."

\--

If there was ever a time when Adam thought that Blake started with Christmas fever a little too soon, it was clearly only because he had never spent the holidays around Blake's mother before.

She's hanging up mistletoe in the entryway when Adam and Blake come down the stairs, doing her best to reach the arch above the door.

"What do y'all think? Is it too early for mistletoe?"

Adam snorts, slinging his elbow over Blake's tall shoulder to rest there. "Considering Blake's been listening to Christmas music since Easter, no. I don't think it is."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Dorothy says. She reaches up as high as her arms allow to pin the tiny sprig of mistletoe on top of the doorway, right in the middle, then steps back to admire her handiwork. "All right, boys. You wanna christen it?"

No, no, Adam is pretty sure he does not want that. Why on earth did he encourage her? Anyone holding the equivalent of an instant romantic hostage instigator in their hand shouldn't ever be supported.

"Uh, no," Adam says. "We're good. Plus I'm Jewish. Pretty sure we don't do mistletoe."

"You're full of shit," Endy says where she's watching from the kitchen doorway. "It comes from pagan tradition, you know."

"Right, okay, and I'm not pagan."

"Actually," Mike pipes up. "I'm pretty sure it's Norse."

"Oh, just quit griping and kiss your boyfriend already. It should be easy."

"Jesus, y'all are relentless," Blake says, but he seems persuaded, because he reaches for Adam's elbow and pulls him in.

Adam's first instinct is to do what he always does—scrunch his nose up and make a face and generally coil away from Blake's puckered mouth, as per usual—but then he remembers that they're _supposed_ to do stuff like this, they're actually trying to encourage the idea that they're totally in love. He's probably going to have to reprogram his body just to get through this week, much too used to jerking away and pushing Blake off of him whenever his mouth gets close.

Okay, so they kiss. That's something they get to say they've done now. It's very quick. Pretty dry. Blake just swoops in and Adam tips his head up—fuck how tall Blake is, seriously—and their lips push together for a fast second, and that's that.

"There," Blake says, slinging his arm around Adam's shoulder and pulling him into his side. "Now we won't sprout beaks or somethin'."

"Bad luck," Endy chimes in. "You get bad luck for a year if you don't kiss under the mistletoe."

"And sproutin' a beak is pretty bad luck in my book."

Endy gives him a look. "You know, I really don't remember you always being such a weirdo," she says.

"It's Adam," Blake says immediately. "He's a bad influence."

" _Hey_."

"Play nice, boys," Dorothy says, and that's when Adam realizes she's holding an entire handful of mistletoe plants she's not done hanging up yet. She turns away, ready to stick them all over the fucking house like something out of one of Adam's nightmares. "C'mon. I'll need some help reaching the kitchen doorway. Blake, you're tall enough to reach."

"Yeah, just a second," Blake says. He waits until everybody else walks away, at which point he slips his arm off of Adam's shoulder, grabbing his elbow instead and ducking in close. "Hey, that was okay, right? I didn't make it all weird?"

"What? No," Adam says. He feels like it probably should be weird now, because they've never done that before, not straight on the _mouth_ anyway, but it's almost surprising how easy it was. It's weird how _not_ weird it was. "I mean, that probably won't be the last time."

Blake blinks. "What?"

"While we're here," Adam adds, and he could fucking kick himself for not mentioning it right away. "Couples kiss, you know."

"Yeah, I guess they do," Blake says. He looks supremely uncomfortable, eyebrows close together, and Adam is left to wonder if the prospect of kissing him here and there is really that terrible to Blake.

"Don't sound so excited, big guy," Adam says dryly.

"I just—damn, Adam, I feel bad about this," he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I didn't even realize how much stuff would go into this. What I'd be forcin' you to do."

"Woah, relax," Adam tells him. "It's fine, okay. It's not like there's a gun to my head." And kissing Blake isn't the worst thing in the world. Not that he feels comfortable admitting that for some strange reason. "I'm not gonna run for the hills because of a little PDA."

"So this." Blake moves his finger between the two of them, pointing at their lips. "That's okay?"

"Yeah," Adam says. "I mean, you're pretty terrible at it, but."

A moment's worth of genuine concern flashes over Blake's face. Then—

"You little dickhead."

"You'll improve eventually. You know, with the sands of time."

"That kiss left you braindead, admit it," Blake says, and one of his hands reaches for a spot on Adam's stomach that he knows damn well is ticklish, Adam twisting away before he can dig his fingers in. "C'mon, just tell me it rocked your world."

"Gross," Adam says, more out of habit than anything else, and pushes Blake away to a more agreeable distance. "Go help your mother."

It wasn't all that gross. But there's no need for Blake to know that. 

\--

It comes back up again as they're getting ready for bed that night. They're both in the bathroom, Adam in Blake's massive pajama pants and Blake in his older than dirt night shirt while they brush their teeth. Now and again, Blake looks at him in the mirror, eyebrows close together like he's deep in thought—there's a well Adam is almost sure he doesn't want to go down—and eventually, he speaks up.

"You know—never mind," his foamy mouth mumbles.

"What?"

There's a pause, like Blake's wondering if bringing this up is a good idea, but he seems to decide that he might as well. "I was just thinkin'," he garbles around his toothbrush. "Today when we—that was the first time I've ever kissed a guy."

"Never kissed a dude before?" Adam asks. "Can't say that surprises me."

"What, have you?"

"Kissed a guy?" Adam asks. Blake nods. "Yeah."

"Really?"

"Don't knock it 'til you try it, right?"

"Guess so."

Blake spits out into the sink first, wiping his mouth dry while Adam finishes brushing. The more they do this, things like stand by a sink shoulder-to-shoulder and get ready for bed, the more it hits Adam just how domestic this is, how easy it is to get comfortable sharing a room. Even while living together at Adam's place, they were always on opposite ends of the house, never ducked over the same sink and certainly never sharing the same bed, never even sharing the same wall.

"It's different," Blake says. "From a kissin' a woman."

Adam shrugs, leaning into the sink for his turn to spit and rinse. "Eh, not that much." Mouths are mouths. Lips are lips. Almost all of them are soft and supple. He finds himself hoping that Blake doesn't define kissing a man off of this last experience, if only because that kiss was much too quick to make any kind of judgment off of. Not that Adam wants to prove it, but they could easily do a lot better. "Except for this," he says, touching Blake's beard with his thumb for a moment. "That's definitely different."

"Did you like it?"

"What, your scratchy facial hair in my face?"

"The kiss," Blake amends. 

Adam's shoulders lift in another tiny noncommittal shrug. This is normally when he's throw out a teasing joke about him having had much better or that Blake could really stand to practice with the back of a spoon a bit more, but Blake's face is uncharacteristically serious, like he really wants to know.

"It was okay. Could've been sexier."

"Sexier? You wanted that kiss we had in front of my mom to be _sexier?_ "

"I'm just saying, it wasn't—that wasn't the kind of kiss you make judgments on. It was too fast."

"What I'm getting here is that you're tryin' to goad me into kissin' you again," Blake says. He's wiping toothpaste foam off the corner of his mouth and is wearing a pajama tee that looks like it should've been thrown away two decades ago and looking the least sexy Adam has probably ever seen him. Adam can't help it; he snickers. "What? I'm right, aren't I?"

"You are _so stupid_."

"Maybe we oughta practice," Blake says, grinning as he reaches to grab Adam's forearms. "Make it look better next time. C'mere."

He puckers his lips, trying to swoop in closer, and Adam tries to control his laughter while working to keep Blake at a distance, hands flat on his shoulders to push him back.

"We're not _practicing_ making out, oh my god, get off," Adam cries.

"Ah, scared you'll like it too much?"

"For god's sake."

He manages to shoulder Blake back over to his side of the sink, Blake laughing all the while. He steals some of Blake's mouthwash just for that, taking a liberal swig of it and swirling it through his cheeks.

They do the rest of their nightly routine in silence, Blake only interrupting it with an occasional snort of laughter that's residue from their conversation. It makes Adam grin too—Blake's laugh is annoyingly infectious like that—but he also starts wondering if he actually did like that kiss, and if he'd even mind if Blake swept him up onto the counter and pushed him against the bathroom mirror and worked on making their kisses look natural. He pretty much accepted that he's not totally straight a few years back, but he never thought that Blake was someone he would actually be attracted to. Blake was someone to dick around with and have a good time around, except that good time now includes making out. 

He wonders, not for the first time, if either of them knows what they're doing here.

He doesn't say it out loud—it's a silly thought anyway—but he does dwell on it a little bit, if all this pretending is actually a mistake they can't take back. Everything's been so _easy_ between them—is that normal? Is it supposed to be this easy?

"You know what's weird?" Adam says as he digs his legs under the covers, Blake already slid into bed.

"Huh?"

"Have you noticed how all this pretending—it's not even that different from how we normally act?"

Blake seems to consider it. "Don't normally kiss you on the mouth."

"Well, yeah, but all the other stuff." The joking around, the bickering, the arms over each other's shoulders, the occasional temple kisses. None of it is new. "Isn't that weird?"

Blake's eyes are focused on the wallpaper on the other end of the room, and he stays quiet for a moment to process what Adam said, and something about the fact that Blake isn't dismissing it or making an offhand joke makes Adam regret bringing it up at all. Maybe Blake now thinks Adam can't separate fiction from reality, that he's falling into the narrative they've set up about themselves here, and that's not—it's just not the case. He wonders if it's necessary for him to say that out loud, because Blake seems awfully tense.

"Yeah, I guess it kind of is," Blake says, words stretched apart like he's still a little lost in thought. He snaps out of it a moment later, turning to look at Adam. "Unless this is your subtle way of telling me you're sick of me kissin' you in public so much?"

"You saw right through me."

"Yeah, well, too bad. I'm not stoppin'."

"Yeah, yeah, figured as much."

They turn to each other for a moment, smiles unavoidable, before Blake reaches over and flicks the light off.

\--

He wakes up to the smell of waffles drifting all the way up the stairs and his knees—admittedly—dug into Blake's back, a habit he quickly hides all proof of by pulling his legs over to his side and straightening them out. It would’ve worked, too, if Blake wasn’t already awake.

"Told you," Blake says, reaching under the sheets to squeeze his knees, and _fuck him_ , Blake knows that Adam’s ticklish there. "You can’t stay on your damn side."

Adam ignores him, refusing to apologize for trying to make the most out of this matchbox of a bed.

"You know what this bed is?" he says. "It’s like one of those capsule hotels in Japan." He waves off Blake before he can respond. "You’d know what I was talking about if you ever left the country."

"Oh, like you went to one of those places?" Blake says, reaching for his knee again. "You stay in nice places when you travel, I know you do. Fancy mansions that have supermodels built right in that cost three thousand dollars a night."

Yeah, and weirdly enough, this house is still nicer than any of those pricy hotels. Warmer. More snug.

"Hey," Blake says, switching gears. "You know what we were talkin' about last night?"

He has this twitch by his temple that makes Adam think he’s been wanting to ask this ever since he woke up and just couldn’t figure out how to casually bring it up. Adam isn’t sure he wants to go down this road.

"Yeah?"

"The first time you kissed a guy. What was it like for you?"

"Uh." Adam feels a funny tickle chase his spine. Why does Blake even want to know? "It was okay."

"How did it happen?"

He scratches the side of his jaw, a slightly awkward silence hanging in the air before Adam says, "I don't know. It was a while ago. I was pretty young and Michael wanted to cruise for hook-ups and I went along with him and the opportunity presented itself and I just thought—okay, why not."

"So you kissed a guy?" Blake asks. "Did you know him?"

"Nah. He was a stranger, just someone who was into me, I guess." Adam remembers the night pretty well, and the kiss too. It was interesting, growing up with Michael, watching his self-discovery, his acceptance of his sexuality. Of course it caused Adam to wonder about his own, to be comfortable enough with himself to admit that he might not be a hundred percent straight, or that he could at least notice and appreciate a good looking man. He has a hard time imagining that Blake ever dabbled in the same experimentation, let alone _thought_ about it, when he was growing up, which might be where his curiosity is coming from now. "It was fine. Not bad. You never thought about it before?"

"I—well, I did, here and there," Blake admits. "Didn't think it was somethin' I would do, but yeah, I did think about it."

_With who?_ Adam wants to ask, but doesn't, because that would be fucking weird. Was it just some weird afterthought he had as he was falling asleep, when all the bizarre things floating around a mind come out? Is that what he's thinking about when a good-lucking contestant auditions on the show and then Blake throws out some hogwash about "mancrushing" on them, what kissing them would feel like?

"Hey, you know what we ought to do?" Blake asks, eyes lighting up with an idea.

Adam has no clue what's coming here, but if what they've just been discussing is an indication—

"Horseback riding."

Okay, never mind. "What?"

"I'll bet you fifty bucks that you've never ridden a horse. And it's a rite of passage."

"Yeah, maybe in the 1800s." He sits up to catch a glimpse out the window, the sky white like snow is just hanging on every cloud's edge. "And it's too fucking cold to be galloping around on a horse."

"Next time," Blake says, like it's a no-brainer that there'll be a next time.

Adam desperately wants to ask—does he mean his ranch in Tishomingo? Or does he mean here? And if he does mean here, does that imply that Adam will be once again pretending to be Blake's beau? 

He doesn't ask, though, not when it feels too fucking early to be swandiving into thoughts like these. Instead he tilts the alarm clock closer until he can read the time. It's later than he expected.

"I wanna get started with yoga before Mike comes outside."

Blake sighs. "He likes you just fine. You don't have to avoid him."

Adam peels himself out of bed and fishes a fresh shirt out of his bag, wrangling it over his head. "He has a problem with me."

"He doesn't. Stop makin' up trouble where there is none."

"So he hasn't said anything to you?"

"What?" Blake snorts. "About how awful you are and how much he'd like to catapult your ass into nearest corn field?" He gives Adam a solemn look. "Every damn night."

"You're so annoying," Adam says, seizing his pants off the floor and sliding out of the bed to put them on. Blake's pajama pants are unfairly comfortable and there is a certain amount of reluctance that goes into having to take them off. Even his yoga pants, which are on a whole new level of stretchy, roomy, and soft don't hold a candle. "I know I'm right about him."

"Speaking of annoying," Blake brings up. He pokes Adam in the back, right between the knobs of his spine. "That's a very nice message you've left me on the bathroom mirror."

_Right_. Adam had almost forgotten about that.

"You saw it?"

"I did. Always nice when you remind me that you're secretly an eight-year-old boy."

"You're creepy," Adam says, throwing the covers off himself. "And that mirror was funny, admit it."

"Yeah, it was funny."

When Adam heads into the bathroom and finishes his shower ten minutes later, the mirror's steamed up to reveal _Blake sucks_ , and right underneath, the fresher addition of _but Adam sucks harder_ , which is scribbled along the length of the mirror and curved slightly upwards at the end due to space constraints.

Adam sticks his head out the bathroom door. "Really? Is that the best you could come up with?"

"Figured you would appreciate it," Blake says, still stretched out on the bed, "since it's right up there with your level of maturity."

"Unbelievable," Adam says, shutting the bathroom door again, but he doesn't wipe the mirror clean.

\--

He's twenty minutes into his morning yoga when the porch door opens, as expected, and Adam gets the chance to prove Blake wrong about his father.

"Still every morning, huh?"

"Yeah," Adam says. He really ought to find a different place to do this. The room he's sharing with Blake is pretty cramped, but it's better than getting caught out here every morning by Mike and feeling inexplicably like he shouldn't be here.

Then again, Blake invited him and he _is_ here, and he's not going to be anywhere other than here for a while, so maybe he should just get this uncomfortable tension between him and Blake's stepfather all out in the open.

"Look, Mr. Shackleford," Adam says, stepping off his mat. "I feel like... you're uncomfortable with me being here." Mike's mouth twitches, like he wasn't expecting Adam to bring it up. "And I'm not sure why, because I've been here before, and you didn't seem to have an issue with me then."

Mike looks at him for a long, pregnant pause. Adam swears he's seen Blake make this exact same face before when he's thinking hard, except usually with a little less scrutiny behind it.

"Yes, you have been here before," Mike agrees slowly. "Although never quite like this."

"Never quite like this," Adam repeats, confused.

"Yes. Never under these circumstances."

That's when Adam realizes it. He's being _vetted_.

"Oh." Adam takes a moment to smile down at his feet if only to appreciate the ludicrousness of the situation. He feels sixteen again, trying to take a girl to prom and being interrogated by her father in the living room, unsure of the right answers to all of the stern questions he's being pelted with. "This is because of me and Blake. I kind of suspected it might be."

"Damn right it is," Mike says. "I know you two are close, but I also know Blake, and this isn't him. Twenty-something years I've known that boy, and he's not gay."

Okay, this definitely never came up in those pre-prom discussions.

"All due respect, sir," Adam says, trying to find the best way to say this, a way that hopefully doesn't leave damage behind for Blake, "maybe this is something you don't know about him."

"Is that so?"

"Maybe he's gay. Maybe he's not. Maybe he's somewhere in between." Adam shrugs. "All I can say for sure is that he's into me."

Mike nods slowly. His eyes have narrowed a bit, almost like he's a principal hearing a story he doesn't quite believe from a delinquent kid, and Adam tries not to feel under trial under his discerning gaze.

"And how did that happen, exactly?" Mike asks, slipping his arms across his chest.

Adam shrugs again. "It just did," he says. "We just... work."

"I'm just not convinced that Blake knows what he really wants," Mike says. "Do you?"

"I do," Adam says. It comes out like a reflex before he can even think twice about it, even though the longer he stands here, the more he feels like he's digging his own grave. One day, sooner or later, Blake is going to tell his family the truth, or if nothing else, tell them he and Adam are over and show up here with a pretty lady he's in love with, and Adam will have to look everybody here in the eye and deal with the consequences. A pit grows in his stomach that he knows he's going to have to address eventually.

"You haven't even told your folks."

Adam makes a noise, something frustrated that slips out of his throat. "I will. I'm not ashamed of him. Hell, I could do a whole lot worse than Blake," he says, and he means it. Blake is terrific, and he treats the people he loves like gold, and he never ends a day without making Adam laugh first. "This isn't—I'm not keeping him as a dirty little secret or anything."

"He isn't?" Mike repeats skeptically. "Then how come nobody knows about you two? Not even the media?"

"Fuck the media," Adam says. "That person in the magazine isn't even _me_ , it's just some contrived version of me that's completely made up—look. The point is, I think Blake's amazing. And whether or not anybody knows about us doesn't change what we have." He looks down at the patio floor, at Mike's worn boots. "I get it if you wish I was Miranda, okay?"

"That's not it," Mike says. "She was a sweet girl but she wasn't making Blake happy, and that's what matters."

"Yeah, well. We agree on that."

"I don't want Blake getting hurt, is all," Mikes tells him, softening a bit. "He's been through so much this year, and—he doesn't need life gettin' any tougher."

"I know that," Adam says, god, does he know that. Blake's been staying at his house for weeks, how could he not know? "And I'm trying my best to help, not hurt. I really am."

Mike stares at him for another long moment, like he's looking for dishonesty in Adam's eyes, so intently that Adam almost feels as if he has to look away. Finally, he sighs, apparently satisfied by Adam's answers.

"Mike," he says.

"What?"

"None of that _Mr. Shackleford_ nonsense. It's Mike."

He smiles, and Adam smiles back. It feels like a very hesitant truce, like Mike's willing to put aside his coolness for now and give Adam the benefit of the doubt. He holds out his hand and Adam shakes it, wishing suddenly more than anything that he wouldn't know how this story turns out, that there would be a way it could end without disappointing him.

The thought leaves a pretty bad taste in his mouth.

\--

Blake, his stepfather, and Mike all gear up for their annual pre-Thanksgiving hunting trip after Adam's done outside and everybody has an early lunch. They offer that Adam come as well, which is friendly and coming from a good place, but Adam remembers all too well how it went down the last time Blake took him hunting over in Tishomingo, so he declines that invitation as firmly as possible.

"He's too much of a city boy," Blake says as he's shrugging his shoulders into a thick camouflage jacket. "Can't handle a little backcountry."

"Or maybe I just don't get enjoyment out of murdering Bambi and her family," Adam says. And also all the camo. Fuck, does he hate the idea of wearing camo head to toe like this. All three of them look like idiots. "To each their own, I say."

They strap into boots and grab their favorite rifles and do everything save paint their faces to blend into the leaves, and ten minutes later, they're all set to go.

"All right. We'll be back before sundown," Blake says, then leans in, loops his arm around Adam's elbow and gives him a kiss.

It's probably meant to be a goodbye kiss, which by all standards should be fast and reflexive, but Blake lingers just a touch longer than necessary, like he's still a little determined to prove himself after Adam was less than laudatory about their mistletoe kiss. Adam really shouldn't have been such a stickler with the praise; he knows better than anyone that Blake has a competitive fire that rages down miles.

"See you later, honey," Blake says, and the term of endearment is so stupid Adam can't help but roll his eyes and push him away, ruse be damned.

Once they're gone, Endy and Dorothy chatting in the kitchen over the last of the apple pie, Adam heads upstairs and reads, unwinds, calls his family to check in on how the holiday festivities are going, although he does purposefully avoid asking for Michael to stay away from any more questions he's not ready to answer and cans he's not ready to open. He was really expecting to enjoy this time alone after practically being attached to Blake by the hip, but amazingly enough, he actually almost misses him. It's nice having him around here, especially having the whole group laughing together over the dining table, and Adam can't deny that he likes being there, that he even feels a little like he belongs. Everybody's treating him so sweetly that he almost forgets to miss home, and that's definitely a weird thought, because there's a good chance they're this receptive of him because they think Adam's the one responsible for cheering Blake up, for pulling him out of his divorce funk. And none of that's even distantly true, which leaves a bit of a wooden feeling in Adam's chest.

The guys come back at sundown, as promised, right when there's an orange glow stretched over the sky and the daylight starts fading. He hears the crunch of the truck's tires on the gravel driveway from upstairs, the creak of the car's doors, and then Blake's footsteps in the hall before he slips into the guest room, deplorable smell and all.

"Jesus Christ," Adam says, nose wrinkling upwards. "You smell like a caveman." He cups his hand over his nose. "I take it the mighty hunt was successful."

"It was awesome," Blake says. There's dirt smudged all over his hands and even his face, making his teeth even seem a shade whiter when he grins. "You miss me?"

"Not for a second," Adam says. "Take a shower, for god's sake."

Amazingly enough, Blake actually obeys, shucking off his dirty clothes to stink up the whole room and disappearing into the bathroom, Adam listening to the steady rush of the pipes and the showerhead only a wall away. 

He goes downstairs to avoid catching Blake dripping wet in nothing but a towel—images he really doesn't need engraved into his brain—instead helping Dorothy set the table while Mike, already done with his own much-needed wash-off, raves about the great shots they took today out in those woods. The aloofness he was regarding Adam with seems to have melted completely away by now, and if one slightly uncomfortable chat out on the porch was what was necessary to facilitate that, Adam finds it worth it. 

"Next time," Mike says, pointing at Adam sternly. "Next time, you're coming with us. I won't take no for an answer. It's a real bondin' experience."

Hunting really isn't Adam's thing, but he has to admit, it feels awfully nice to have Mike try and include him like this, insist, even. Mike keeps talking about the blast they had out there, and how much he wishes the three of them could do this every day, and how they'll have quite the meat for Thanksgiving's feast, while Adam sets the table and listens to the stories and Dorothy giggling at all the bits where one of them misses their targets.

He goes to get everybody else once the table's set and the stew on the stove is ready to be served and ladled out. He hears Endy and Blake talking in the living room, and something about the soft way they're speaking makes Adam pause right before he rounds the corner.

He stops, leaning against the wall to do his best not to cast a shadow. In the back of his mind, he vaguely registers that he really should address this eavesdropping habit of his at one point.

But not now.

"—wasn't exactly a surprise," Endy is saying, her voice fond. "We all saw it coming."

"You did?" Blake's voice pipes up.

"Yeah. All you gotta do is watch yourself on TV. You hang onto his every word like a puppy, I swear."

"Why the hell does everybody keep saying that?"

"Uh, cause it's true? Besides, we're family. Can't hide nothin' from us."

"Guess not," Blake says slowly.

"You don't have to be so shy about it. We all love him. Definitely better than some of the people we see you next to in the tabloids."

"Aw, tell me you don't read that trash."

"We read it, doesn't mean we believe it," Endy says. "Passes the time when you're waitin' in line at the grocery store."

"If you're that desperate for juicy gossip about me, you could just text me, you know."

"Could I?" Endy asks. "Hell, you didn't even tell me you started datin' Adam. Why didn't you tell any one of us sooner?"

There's a silence during which Adam can hear Blake shifting on the sofa, denim rubbing against the cushions, while he probably tries to think up a reasonable reply.

"Just wanted to make sure it was somethin' good first," Blake eventually says. "And I didn't want you thinkin' it was too soon after the divorce."

"Considerin' you've been in love with him since you first met, I don't believe any of us think it's too soon."

" _What?_ My god, Endy, where are you gettin' this?"

"It's been written all over your face for years!" Endy says, laughing. "It's definitely not too soon. Except, well. You know that Mike gave Adam the run-around this morning?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Out on the porch. I heard everything through the window."

" _What?_ " Blake says again. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"He was probably embarrassed, dummy. I don't think it's a walk in the park to have your boyfriend's family threaten to disembowel you if don't take your relationship seriously."

"That's what he said? That Adam wasn't taking our relationship seriously?"

"Kind of. Hey, relax. I don't think Adam's the type to jump ship just because Mike's giving him a hard time."

"Yeah, but—never mind."

"C'mon, loosen up," Endy says. "Mike's just looking out for you. It's obvious that Adam isn't gonna hit and run you here." Adam can hear fabric rustling, like Endy's rubbing his shoulder in reassurance. "I know being hurt isn't a picnic, but not everybody's gonna break your heart."

Adam closes his eyes where he's still hidden around the corner. This isn't what he thought he'd be overhearing. It almost would've been better if everybody was telling Blake to be careful and guard his heart and not be so quick to love so soon after his separation, but no, they all like Adam and believe in him and trust him not to break Blake's heart, which makes this whole thing that much worse. He doesn't even want to think about what their faces will look like when Blake unavoidably tells him sometime down the road that they've broken up. None of this is even real but there's a part of Adam, the part that's squeezed so tight it feels close to suffocation overhearing this conversation, that wishes it was, that wishes there would be an option other than disheartening them all.

He rounds the corner at that, unable to keep listening to this and slowly start spiraling down a pinwheel of self-deprecation.

"Hey," he says. Endy and Blake both look up at him from the couch. "What're you guys talking about?"

"Oh, nothin'," Endy says, shooting him a very bright smile. "Just lettin' my brother know that we've all got our eye on you, y'know. In case you go runnin' off with Blake's heart."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Adam says, and when he looks down at the carpet, he swears he can feel Blake's eyes on him, strong enough to burn holes.

\--

Dinner is enjoyable as ever, this time with a few hunting stories thrown in as entertainment. Turns out, they've caught a few Thanksgiving day dishes that are currently waiting to be defeathered and gutted in the backyard, a task which Adam does not volunteer for.

He realizes while they're all sitting there passing bowls of food around that he and Blake have gotten good at this, at pretending to be a couple without going overboard, almost falling into a routine that makes it all seem so very natural, nothing like that stiff first night. It isn't until Adam picks up on the fact that Blake's arm is slung over the back of his chair that he notices just how used to this he's become, how it's only been a few days but neither of them are struggling to make this look real anymore. Is it going to be just as easy to go back to how it all was before?

Adam thinks about this when they're back in the guest room, if it's going to be like turning off a switch once they get back to LA, or if they'll still reach for each other now and then out of a conditioned reflex long after they no longer need to. God forbid Blake leans down and kisses him hello one day while the cameras are rolling, assuming that Blake is even going to have trouble with making that mental switch after they go home. If he's worried about it, he doesn't let it show.

It'll still work, Adam tells himself, has to tell himself. It's not like this trip is total immersion, constant PDA, never-ending gushing; they still have moments, little safe places where they get to be themselves, be just friends. Like in here, in the guest room. They just have to be careful not to smudge that line.

"Hey," Blake asks once the door is safely shut behind them. "Why didn't you tell me about my stepdad cornering you on the porch?"

Adam should've known that would come up. "It wasn't—he didn't corner me. I was already out there, and I asked him why he was being so weird with me, and we... talked." Talked is a bit of an inaccurately soft word, really, but who cares. "I think he's worried I'm going to break your heart."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Adam says. He sees the heaviness in Blake's shoulders at that and sits down on the edge of the bed, feeling a little drained and just as heavy. "Blake, they're gonna hate the fuck out of me when this is over."

"What? Why?"

"Because everybody is already waiting for me to screw this up—and fuck, it's not even real, and I still feel like—like they're all going to think I fucked you over or something when you tell them we've broken up."

That's in the future, but probably not that far out. Blake's an attractive guy and there are thousands of girls out there who'd be happy to date him, to be here in his home and meet his family over the holidays like Adam is, and it won't take too long before Blake moves on and then he'll have to find a way to tell his family that he and Adam are over, and no matter how he spins it, Adam is pretty sure that Dorothy will never want to hug him again.

"Hey," Blake says, sitting next to him. "It won't be like that, I'll make sure it won't." He slides his arm around Adam's shoulder, the dip in the mattress under their weight pushing them close together. "I'll tell them the truth, all right? Or I'll just tell them it was my fault. That I drove you out with all my bad habits or something."

That last bit sounds a little miserable as it leaves Blake's mouth. Adam can't help but wonder if this is what he thinks happened with Miranda, with everybody else, that he got to be too much for them and that he disappointed them and that he just wasn't enough, and the idea of Blake thinking that is almost laughable because of how wrong it is, but that's what Blake does, he stews in insecurities and pretends he isn't. It drives Adam fucking crazy because he's great, he's so goddamn great, and how the hell does Blake not get that?

"No," Adam says. He touches Blake's knee for a second, squeezing it. "You're not gonna throw yourself under the bus like that. How about we just say we—we weren't right for each other but we're still good friends. How's that?"

"Perfect," Blake says. He sounds exhausted, like all this lying is taking a toll on him, and he lets out a long exhale that makes him sound like an old, tired man. "Gosh, Adam, I know this whole thing is weird as hell but I gotta say, I'm glad you're the one I'm doin' it with."

"You say that like there's literally anybody else you know who would've agreed."

"Guess that's true," Blake says. "I probably owe you an edible arrangement or two for this."

"Edible—are you kidding me?" Adam says. "I deserve to be in your fucking _will_ when we're done here."

"All right, fine, but I'm choosin' what I'm leavin' you," Blake says. He pokes Adam in the arm. "It hasn't been that bad though, has it?"

All joking aside, Adam's almost amazed by the realization that no, it hasn't. He had expected it to feel extremely awkward, forced, a real test to his theater skills. It hasn't. It's all been... nice, at least the bits where Adam got to immerse himself in the warmth of such a friendly family in a tiny Oklahoma town and feel like he's a part of it.

"You know what? I know what you can do to make it up to me," Adam says, new energy coming to him.

"So I don't have to put you in my will?"

"Oh, no, you totally do," Adam says, patting his knee. "But on top of that. You could show me around Ada a bit more."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Adam says. "I liked seeing your old house. It's like—like I get to see a whole different part of you. See the history behind the man. The big ol' country star."

He smiles, knocking their knees together. He can hardly even explain it, but getting to stand in Blake's old bedroom, imagining the memories that happened down these roads, looking at all those faded childhood photos hung up in the hallways—it's like taking a seat inside Blake's mind. It's experiencing who he really was long before he ever stepped foot into LA, and that young dorky cowboy kid who he was back then, Adam's endeared by him.

"Wow, seriously?" Blake says. He looks almost embarrassed that Adam's actually interested in all this. "Town's damn small. The tour wouldn't last very long."

"Fine by me."

"Really?"

" _Yeah_ , really."

Blake looks at him for another moment, a tiny awed upward pull to his mouth, like he's still waiting for Adam to roll his eyes and change his mind, like he can't imagine that someone like Adam who grew up in the craze and the noise and the possibilities of Los Angeles could care about a little Midwestern city, but he seems to pick up on the fact that Adam is genuinely curious.

"Well, all right," Blake says, slapping his knees. "You wanna go now?"

"Why not?"

"Okay. Let's go."

They throw on their heavier coats—dark has fallen and the chill has gotten significantly more biting than it was earlier in the day—and slip on their shoes, getting prepared for their journey. Blake bullies him into adding a hat and gloves into the mix, telling him all kinds of horror stories that cycled around his high school of kids losing their fingers to frostbite because of the winter nights around here, stories so absurd Adam has to laugh at them.

Dorothy sees them head for the door as they walk down the stairs, wrapped in a plaid bathrobe and flipping through late-night TV in the living room.

"Where are y'all goin'?" she asks.

"Just a little adventure around Ada," Blake tells her.

She smiles, like she's awfully charmed by the idea of Blake showing Adam around the town, even if it is nine p.m. "All right. Bundle up, boys. Be careful."

"Will do, mama," Adam promises, the name just rolling off his tongue as he pulls his mittens on.

"Don't be out too late."

"We won't," Adam says, but the less-than-subtle wink Blake throws him makes him think they might be out all night. 

Blake just grabs his hand with a gloved one of his own, eyes happy and brighter than Adam's seen them in months, and pulls him out the door.

\--

The tour gets off to a slow start. It's a bit of a drive for them to reach the first landmark Blake's chosen to show off, the first thirty minutes nothing more than them rolling through the darkness while Blake looks for radio channels that are already playing Christmas music and the car's headlights illuminates a quiet road stretching out in front of them. It's very soothing, sitting in the passenger seat of a cozy rental car while warm air blasts through the vents and Bing Crosby's soft voice crinkles through the speakers, and Blake next to him, a comforting presence across the gearshift.

"I was thinkin' I would take you to that big water tower—you know, the one I had on top of my album? But I doubt that'd be too interesting for you."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's not too fancy."

"How bad do you think my attention span is?" Adam asks, indignant. "Think I can't enjoy something that isn't a big skyscraper?"

"Somethin' like that," Blake says. In the blue light from the radio's buttons, Adam can see that he's smiling. "Here. I got a good idea."

He drives them down the same road for another five minutes before making a few turns, eventually pulling into a dim parking lot. The building behind it looks pretty shabby, but there are lights on inside, spilling outward from the windows, and when Adam gets out of the car, he can hear the soft thump of music trickling out too.

"What's this?" Adam asks as Blake leads him up to the door.

"Best bar in town," Blake says. "And also the first place I ever had a guitar gig."

He beckons for Adam to follow him as they step inside. It looks exactly like what Adam ever thought a Midwestern bar would look like: all dark wood, old Christmas lights above the counter, a few drunks laughing over card games at the corner table, and even a tiny little raised platform with a stool and a microphone stand on the other end. It's quaint, and off the beaten track, and totally Blake. As a matter of fact, Adam can practically see young teenaged Blake sitting on that very stool, how he would've sat there, what he would've sung.

"Whaddya think?" Blake asks, and he doesn't have to do it, not here, but he still puts his arm around Adam's shoulders, pulling him just close enough to raise eyebrows. "Lot of memories here for me."

"It's nice," Adam tells him, and with a startling amount of honesty, he says, "I love it."

"Yeah?"

"It's you. Absolutely you."

"Can't disagree with you there," Blake says. "Practically grew up on that stage over there. Even full, this place doesn't compare even a smidge to how big a Nashville concert can be, but damn. Always felt like the whole world was watching whenever I played here."

"You should do it again."

"What, sing here?"

" _Yeah_."

"Blake motherfuckin' Shelton," someone says, grabbing both of their attention. It's the bartender who's talking, an older bearded man with white wisps for hair and knobbly hands, a huge, disbelieving smile on his face. "As I live and breathe. Thought you were allergic to this town."

"Oh my gosh," Blake says, heading over to the bar. He takes Adam right along with him, the arm over his shoulder not moving. " _Glen_. I can't believe you still work here, man. It's been ages." He turns to Adam. "Adam, this guy saw me the very first time I sang here. We go way back."

"Yessir, I did, and now your picture's up on the wall," he says, pointing up at a framed black and white photograph hanging above the bar. It's Blake, still adolescent and making some truly questionable hair choices, guitar in hand and eyes pulled downward to the strings. Glen turns to Adam. "You a friend?"

"You don't know who this is?" Blake asks, arm tightening around Adam's shoulders just in case he tries to sneak away out of embarrassment. "This is Adam Levine. He's a big deal. Sexiest man alive."

"I've been dethroned," Adam reminds him. The bartender's looking at him with shrewd eyes and Adam feels his cheeks get unnecessarily hot under the sudden scrutiny, unable to keep from wondering if Blake's arm draped over him is the cause. "And who the hell are you anyway, my publicist?"

"Just your biggest fan," Blake says, smile wide and cheeky. He turns back to Glen. "He's a real good guy. Sings too."

"Well then," Glen says. "How about some beers on the house for y'all?"

Obviously, they don't say no. They sit there and chat with the guy for a while, talking about the old times, stories about young Blake bumbling through his first bouts of stage fright, and as they talk, Blake leans closer and touches Adam's thigh now and then, hands gentle and probably not even aware of what they're doing. Glen's eyes flick down to see it but if he's bothered by it, he doesn't say anything, which is not what Adam expected out of the conservative Bible Belt they're in. He can't even tell if Blake realizes he's doing it or is just acting out of some recently acquired habit, but it's certainly not a strictly platonic touch.

A part of Adam vaguely worries about the consequences this could have, that there could be someone in this bar who sees them and the opportunity they present, snaps a few photos and posts them straight to the Internet, and he's not sure there's a lot of wiggle room out from a picture of the two of them, huddled close in a bar the day before Thanksgiving feeling each other up, other than owning up to what it looks like. He should be more vigilant—hell, they don't even have to pull this stunt out in public like this—but Adam can't bring himself to care, much less be worried that one of the townies is going to tattletale on them to Twitter, and so he doesn't fight it, doesn't question it when Blake gets casually handsy out here where anyone can see.

"So I think you realize that there's only one thing left to do here, hot shot," Glen says to Blake after they've finished their beers, and he even gives Adam a little private smirk like he's in on whatever he's referring to. "And you know what that is."

"What?"

"Sing," he says, gesturing to the stage. "Grace us normal folk with that Hollywood voice of yours."

Blake's already shaking his head, but Adam whoops with laughter and grabs his shoulder, squeezing. "No, you gotta," he tells Blake. "C'mon."

"No way," Blake says. "I don't even have a guitar with me."

"We got plenty in the back. Nice ones too."

"And I haven't done anything like this in _ages_."

"If you can work those gigantic Super Bowl stadiums," Glen says, creases deep in his face as he frowns, "you can sit on that dinky little stage and sing for us."

"Yeah, come on," Adam coaxes. "Pipes gone soft or what?"

"You guys really won't quit till I do it, huh?" Blake asks, but he doesn't sound all too annoyed.

" _No,_ " they both say.

"All right, all right. Twist my arm." Blake slides off the stool, shaking his head all the while, and Glen hurries into an employees-only storeroom to come out with a beautiful, shiny guitar, handing it to Blake over the bar.

"There you go," he says. "Make us proud."

Blake takes it, still shaking his head, chuckling to himself, but Adam slides his hands to Blake's shoulders and gives them a quick rub followed by a motivational pat on the back. He heads to the stage, the wooden floors noisy under his heavy boots, and settles himself onto the stool, clearing his throat as some of the bar takes notice of him.

"Hey, y'all," Blake says, voice deep in the microphone. "Sorry if I'm interruptin' your evenings, but I just got bullied into playin' up here by some so-called-friends, so here I'm gonna sing a few songs."

A few cheers ripple through the thin crowd, chairs scraping against the floor to face the stage. Blake strums the guitar gently a few times, hand running up and down the fretboard and fingers playing with the turning pegs to get a feel for the sound. He looks good up there, surrounded by vintage bar signs and low lights.

"Uh, this one here is for that little dude sitting right over there at the bar," Blake says, pointing directly at Adam, who slides a hand over his face to hide his wide grin. "You know how a song can make you fall in love? Well, Adam totally fell in love with me when he heard me sing this one."

He shoots Adam a wink that burns like a shot going down. Then Blake clears his throat, sets his hands into place on the strings, and plays the first few bars of This Love.

\--

After the bar, during which many of the drunks in the corner demand encores to Blake's performances, they stop at Blake's old high school—which is locked, but sitting in the parking lot feels like it brings back just as many memories for Blake as walking around the halls would've—an old bowling alley that used to be the town's best get-together spot, and a quiet fishing lake shrouded by tall trees where Blake shares stories of standing in the water wearing waders while his father taught him how to cast a line.

Adam's frozen to the bone by the end of the tour, which goes well past two a.m., but he can't bring himself to care. There was something amazing about driving around town this late at night while Blake wove his way from story to story, little memories and big moments coming back to him with every stop they took. Adam's always thought that Blake has a nice voice, especially when it slows down to that slow, pleasant drawl, and it felt especially true tonight, sitting in the dark, in the passenger seat, in that shabby bar, just listening to Blake talk. His voice got a little raspy after he sang, which only made it all the more comforting, Adam fairly certain they could've driven around until sunrise and he wouldn't have minded just sitting there listening to him.

"This was great," Blake admits when they sneak back into the house, careful not to wake anybody up. "Felt like a kid again. Singing there—it was just like I remembered. Scarier than all those times I've sung in those big-ass arenas."

"Because you can really see people?"

"Yeah. No lights to blind you and let you pretend you're up there alone." His hand finds Adam's shoulder. "Glad you were there."

They strip off their boots by the front door and ease their way up the stairs, avoiding the squeaky steps, and Adam wastes little time undressing and curling under the bedsheets after they make it to the guest room, waiting for his limbs to warm up again.

"One day I'll repay the favor," Adam promises. "And we can drive around L.A. and I'll take you to all of my old haunts."

Blake slips into bed next to him. He doesn't bother flipping on the bedside lamp, letting Adam rely on the movement of the mattress and the smell of Blake's aftershave to figure out when he's there, only a few inches away.

"Yeah, let's do that," Blake says. His hand circles unexpectedly around Adam's wrist. "Jesus, you're cold."

"Yeah, no shit," Adam says. "Nobody told me I'd have to bring thermal underwear on this trip."

"Well, here."

Blake's hand slips off his wrist only to wrap his arm around Adam's middle. He's warm, unreasonably warm considering how long they just spent outside, and Adam gives in and huddles closer, not denying the touch. If they can kiss on the mouth and hold hands, Adam doesn't see the harm in them sleeping closer together than usual for warmth.

He thinks, without meaning to, about what he had been worrying about recently—total immersion, safe places, not having to pretend to be anything they're not behind closed doors. Adam listens to the sound of Blake's steady breathing, looking down at the dark outline of Blake's arm slung over him, and thinks they might be blurring that line he told himself not to.

\--

They don't seem to move much during the night, bodies dead weight with exhaustion, and if they do, they curl right back into place before waking up, which is how Adam finds them when he does: Blake only a few centimeters away, arm heavy around Adam's middle, hair a curly mess where it's pressed against the pillow.

Adam can't help but think _is this okay? Is this normal?_ He has no fucking clue anymore what's all in good fun and what isn't. He's either overthinking or completely underplaying this, but all he knows for sure is that he's still tired, his and Blake's late-night extravaganza around town not quite yet slept off, but before he can burrow back into the pillowcase and shut out the world, Blake's blinking awake across from him.

"Hey," Blake says. He still looks hopelessly sleepy, eyes squinting against the morning light, and it takes Adam a moment to realize he's getting used to this sight when he wakes up, seeing Blake all drowsy and soft in the early morning. "Happy Thanksgiving."

"Shit," Adam says in response. "That's today, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is."

"And that probably means we'll have to get out of bed?"

"Think so." Out of nowhere, Blake's arm tightens around Adam's waist, tugging him closer. "Not yet, though."

"Yeah? How long can we hide in here?"

"All day sounds nice," Blake says. "Though it would suck to miss out on turkey."

His hand touches the small of Adam's back. It feels awfully intimate, and for a moment, it feels like there's no space between them, just warmth, just skin. This is probably how they'd wake up if they really were a couple, Adam thinks, and something about that thought makes his mouth a little dry.

Blake's eyes open a bit more, gaze not as bleary as before. He's looking right at Adam, and he's really only a couple inches away, and if the hand on the back felt intimate, this looking at each other, all close up and sleepy, this is much worse.

"You've got nice eyes," Blake murmurs.

"Me?" Adam says. He feels the strong urge to look away, to focus on something other than Blake's face, like his ear, or the wall, but he finds he can't quite move his eyes. "What about you, with all that blue? It's like—like looking into the ocean."

Blake gives a throaty little chuckle in response. "That's the sappiest thing you've ever said to me," he says.

"You started it."

"Yeah," Blake agrees. He's still looking very intently at Adam's eyes, at the color, at the shape, and his hand gently moves up his back, fingers brushing over the knobs of his spine. "Couldn't help but notice."

They look at each other, eyes locked together, and the moment feels heavy, full of a tremendous amount of unspoken weight. Adam's no longer cold like he was last night; as a matter of fact, he feels searing hot, and he can't help but wonder if he and Blake really were close like this all night, if they stayed pressed together like when they fell asleep. Something about thinking that they did feels inexplicably _cozy_.

A hard set of knocks on the door jolts Adam out of—whatever the fuck that just was—and reminds him of the reality surrounding them. He feels like he's just been caught in something he shouldn't have been, which is downright dumb considering the whole point of this visit here is to be caught like this, acting like a couple.

"Guys!" It's Endy on the other side of the door, and she pounds her fist on it a few more times for good measure. "Come on, get your lazy asses up. It's Thanksgiving and mom's got chores!"

Adam groans. " _Chores_. Can't believe you roped me into coming here with you, man."

"Necessary evil," Blake says, and he must feel the snap of the moment breaking too, because he rolls away from Adam and sits up, grabbing clothes from where they're dropped by the side of the bed. The spots he touched Adam's back still feel unbelievably warm even after he pulls back.

\--

After leaving the warmth and coziness of the bed, things get a little hectic.

Dorothy has everybody helping in the kitchen, and refuses to let anybody sneak off. She has Adam chopping vegetables, Blake stuffing the turkey, the Mikes outside chopping wood for the fireplace tonight, and Endy preparing desserts. There doesn't seem to be time to breathe, let alone for the occasional bathroom break, and it does start to feel a little bit like an afternoon in the barracks, a joke that Dorothy swats Adam over the head for.

The upside is that the energy in the house is fucking _amazing_. The kitchen smells incredible and everybody's laughing, recounting stories of long-gone Thanksgivings while the football game drifts over from the TV in the living room. Adam's doubled over so many times in mirth that he's almost sliced his finger open twice with his vegetable knife.

"Hey," Endy says, voice a conspiratorial whisper as she scoots closer and pinches his arm. "Want to see something funny?"

"Yeah."

"Blake," she says, grinning across the kitchen counter. "Wanna tell Adam about the time you cried over a chicken?"

Blake's shoulders immediately drop, face hard. "Goddammit, Endy, you promised you'd stop telling that story." The second Endy dissolves into giggles, he groans. "For god's sake, I was _five_. And it didn't have a head."

"Wait, _what?_ "

"We were on my grandpa's farm for Thanksgiving," Blake says, quick to tell the story before Endy gets to it first. "And anything we ate on the table we got out of the backyard, including the chickens, and—"

"—and there was Blake, not realizing that we weren't gonna eat the chicken alive, and he begged momma to help grandpa pick one out—"

"Hey, hey, _I'm_ telling the story," Blake says, cutting Endy off. "I was a little kid who wasn't expecting that scary ass axe to lop that sucker of a chicken's head right off. It was a little traumatizing."

"He cried for hours," Endy says, eyes wet from amusement. "Told us all he didn't wanna eat animals no more. That didn't last real long, did it, Blake?"

"That," Adam says, grinning, "is _priceless_. I'll remember that story the next time you make fun of me for not wanting to go hunting with you." He comes over to Blake's side of the counter, bumping their shoulders together as he raises his chest up high and puts his best Blake imitation together. " _Why, you're too much of a silly city boy, Adam. You're not built for these dar woods like I am_."

"Sounds nothing like me," Blake says. "You sound like Abraham Lincoln."

"I think it sounds more like Santa Claus," Endy says, licking cranberry sauce off her thumb. "But, you know what, once Blake's hair turns white, he'll look like him, though."

"Oh man, do I _love_ your sister," Adam says.

"Hey, don't laugh at that," Blake says, digging his elbow into Adam's side. "You're my boyfriend, you're supposed to be on my side."

"Hey, I never agreed to that," Adam says, smile still stretched so wide on his face his cheeks are starting to hurt. "If I'm not allowed to laugh at you, we're gonna have to break up."

"You're the worst," Blake says, then he pulls his hands out of the turkey, a good amount of bird innards and other things Adam doesn't need to learn the names of slathered all the way up to his elbows, and he extends his arms to grab for Adam. "C'mere, gimme a kiss."

"Oh my god, _no_ ," Adam says, immediately stepping around the counter and out of reach. "You have turkey guts all over your arm, you freak—stay the hell away!"

It's a losing battle to run away, though, because Adam's laughing too hard to actually be faster than Blake, to say nothing about those long fucking legs Blake has to his advantage, and within ten seconds, Blake has him cornered against the fridge, the magnets digging into his back.

"You're disgusting," Adam says, breathless. "You have no fucking manners, I swear to—no! Blake, fuck no!"

He tries to squirm away, but Blake grabs him straight by the cheeks before he can make an escape, wet hands digging into Adam's face to keep him still while he plants a wet kiss on Adam's forehead.

"Ugh," Adam says, and then a few more times for good measure. He smells like the inside of a turkey's anus. "I hate you."

"You love me," Blake says, this time kissing his grimacing mouth, and then again until Adam's lips relax, the kisses quick but still pulling a strange warmth to Adam's gut.

This has gotten easy for them, he thinks. Too easy.

"Okay, can we get back to sharing embarrassing stories about Blake being an idiot?" Adam asks once Blake retreats, feeling mildly like he's stepping out of a shaky fog.

"Hey, that's no fair," Blake protests. "No one's around to tell embarrassing stories about you."

"That's because my family, fortunately, is thousands of miles away."

"I'll make 'em talk," Blake promises. "When we stay with your folks, I'll make your mom bring out photo albums."

Adam ignores the funny little twist to his stomach. He doesn't get how Blake is doing this, how he's throwing out all these casual little references that their relationship will survive this visit, that it's something that'll continue long after they leave and something they'll want to share with Adam's family too, and Adam always has to remind himself that all this is for the benefit of whoever's listening, that it's all part of the show, and as much as he knows this, it's still starting to irk him. How long are they going to drag this out? Will Adam be back here again to pose as Blake's one and only during New Years? Fourth of July?

Honestly, he's not sure which is worse, coming back to Oklahoma lots more in the future to keep this charade going, or imagining Blake coming back with someone else.

\--

More of Blake's relatives pop by for Thanksgiving dinner after the brunt of the work is done, like his uncle and aunt, a few cousins, and even a couple tiny nephews and nieces Adam's never met before. Each time Adam meets one of them, Blake pulls him close and grins and says _this here is my boyfriend, Adam_ , and each time, it sounds more and more natural, less like a rehearsed line and more like the truth.

It's not what Adam expected out of Blake. Even with all the handsy joking around with Adam they've done in the past and the exposure he must've gotten in LA to people exploring their sexuality, Adam still didn't expect him to take so well to the idea of having a boyfriend, even a pretend one, to say nothing of his family. With the exception of a few shocked looks here and there, nobody says anything untoward about them being a couple, not even whispering about how unnatural their relationship is when their backs are turned. 

It's almost like they're all rooting for them, like they all genuinely adore Adam. He's heard more than once that he comes off a little aloof, a little cool, a little arrogant when he's first meeting someone, but none of them seem to mind or even agree. That, or their infectious laughter and drawling accents have stripped away all of Adam's fences and left nothing but the real person underneath, the one he typically is when it's just him and his friends, just him and Blake, hanging out, talking, scribbling down music. 

One of Blake's cousins even comes up to him and tells him he's a big fan of Maroon 5 and he never misses the show if only to laugh at Blake's antics. Some of them ask Adam if he misses his own family, if he misses spending Thanksgiving with them, and Adam tells them all about the way his mother's house is probably overflowing with relatives right now, how they're all probably gearing up for the annual three-legged races, sharing all the dumb, dorky traditions his family does every year that he usually keeps to himself. 

Blake doesn't seem to think they're that strange, though, because he just swings his arm around Adam's shoulders and says, "We'll go next year," and then goes on to brag about all the burlap sack races he and Richie used to dominate when they were kids at camp, how they'll totally be able to win over Adam's siblings.

It takes longer than usual to get everybody seated for dinner. Mike heaves extra dining chairs out of the basement to accommodate everybody at the table, the tight fit somehow cozy instead of uncomfortable, and it's not until the food comes out, all of it displayed proudly in the center of the table, that everybody quiets down in favor of loading their plates. It's a quick process, everybody reminded of just how famished they all are, especially Blake, who tries his best to sneak a few bites in early on.

"Blake Shelton, you put that turkey leg down. We haven't said what we're thankful for yet."

"Momma, I'm _hungry_ ," Blake whines, but he puts the leg down anyway. "You've had us working like dogs all day."

"Yes, and everybody else still has enough manners to not go diving straight in," Dorothy reminds him. "We gotta stick to tradition. Now, why don't you go first and tell us what you're thankful for?"

"All right, fine," Blake says, taking a breath and leaning back in his chair to survey the packed table. "Well. I'm thankful for all this amazing food that I can't wait to tear into, and I'm thankful for everybody in this room here tonight, like my family. And I'm thankful for dad, who I miss like hell every single day. And my career, which brought me to this guy right over here."

Blake's hand comes down on Adam's shoulder, then slides down to grab his hand. Adam looks down at it, the way Blake's hand curls easily into his.

"He's a great guy and honestly the best boyfriend out there, I'm sure of it," Blake continues. There isn't even a moment where he hesitates on the word _boyfriend_ , all of it sounding so certain coming out of his mouth. "He's been there for me through so much and I can only hope he's gonna stick around for a long time. I love you, Adam."

And Blake's said that so many times, Adam has too, but it feels different here, less friendly, less casual, more real, and Adam feels like screaming because he can't tell the difference between anything anymore, what's genuine or what's all part of the lie.

"Love you too," Adam says, his voice coming out a little strained.

Half the table coos. Adam almost wishes they weren't here because something about this moment feels so inexplicably intimate, like it's not meant to be heard or seen by anybody else.

"Adam, you want to go next?" Dorothy asks.

"Uh, not sure I can really follow that, but all right," he says.

"C'mon. This is your chance to cry over me like I know you want to," Blake tells him, while Adam promptly ignores.

"Obviously I'm thankful for all of you guys," he starts, "especially for letting me into your home like this, and my family, who are lots of miles away but probably having a Thanksgiving just as awesome as this one. And my band, they're awesome too, don't know where I'd be without them." He rolls his lips into his mouth, wondering if he can get away with skipping Blake, but when he looks over at him, Blake's smiling, an expectant gleam in his eyes.

"Saving the best for last or what?" he asks.

"You just stomp all over any kind of moment, you know that?" Adam says. "Yeah, okay, I'm thankful for Blake too. He's got a good heart—the best, really. And that, well, it means everything."

He doesn't think what he says is anywhere near what Blake said about him, but it seems to affect Blake all the same—when Adam looks at him, Adam swears he sees a smidgen of something wet by his eyes that's blinked away a flash later. Blake smiles, his mouth tight with emotion when he does, and he leans in and wraps his palm around the back of Adam's neck to pull him in.

This kiss is totally different from the one under the mistletoe, or even the ones after. Those were perfunctory and chaste, the kind of quick kisses you'd give a spouse after thirty years of marriage, and this one has _feeling_ behind it, and even though they're in front of Blake's entire family, Adam feels like this kiss isn't for the sake of them seeing, instead for him, just him.

"All right, let's keep this PG," Mike says, chortling and reminding Adam that right, they have a bit of an audience. Adam jerks back, and surely it's obvious on his face just how affected he was by that, surely everybody can tell that there's no way he and Blake normally do this, but nobody seems even slightly suspicious. 

"Right," Blake says, and his voice sounds a little rougher, a little deeper. "Momma, you wanna go?"

His hand stays on Adam's thigh. He's positive that Blake doesn't realize, that he's forgotten it's there, but now and then, his thumb brushes back and forth on his leg, just a gentle touch. It's under the table, completely out of view for anybody to see, but Blake doesn't remove it, and Adam doesn't say anything.

\--

After the food is gone, the drinks come out. Mike disappears into the pantry and comes back with bottles of vintage bourbon in his arms, pouring everybody generous portions in the tall, fancy, holiday-occasion-only glasses in the back of the kitchen cupboards.

It feels nice, like home. Blake keeps his arm around Adam the entire time, and Adam never stops to think about how naturally they've fallen into this facade, how it doesn't take a lot of work anymore to convince anybody that they're together.

It's not a good thing. Rationally, in the part of his mind that functions better when he's more sober than he is now, Adam knows that he's slipping behind the curtain too much. This Adam, the loving boyfriend to Blake, he's supposed to just be a role, someone separate from himself, but it doesn't quite feel like he is anymore. Everything feels blurry now and he's no longer sure of a thing, much less how Blake feels about any of it.

All he knows is that he keeps thinking of Blake here with somebody else—in years past, in years to come—and it makes illogical, jealous anger bubble to the surface of his skin. Blake's fingers are soft and warm on the small of his back and he can't imagine anybody else here in his place, doesn't want to. He wants it to be him, just him.

The alcohol makes it hard to focus, to think about what any of these things mean. He can't stop laughing at Blake's stupid jokes until his throat hurts, and now and again Blake ducks down and kisses him seemingly for no reason, just because, and Adam presses into it each time, all of it so, so unthinkingly comfortable. He dips his head into the curve of Blake's throat here andt here just to feel Blake shudder against him, to have Blake card a hand through Adam's hair, the touch so good and so familiar it nearly hurts, and paired with the alcohol, it's bringing all sorts of nonsensical garbage to his brain, thoughts like how is he ever supposed to want anything else? How did he ever think it would be hard to pretend he doesn't?

They clearly have everybody fooled. The problem is that Adam thinks he might be too.

\--

He's a little hungover the next morning, and even Blake, who Adam knows firsthand has the alcohol tolerance of someone with a cast iron liver, spends a longer time sleeping in than usual, face pressed into the pillow.

When he comes downstairs, desperate for a greasy breakfast and some fresh air and nearly tripping over Blake's pajama pants and face-first into the banister, Dorothy's standing over a massive cardboard box overflowing with Christmas decorations, apparently already prepared to put Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror.

"Morning, sweetheart," she says, chipper enough to let Adam know that she was wise enough to only stick to a few glasses of wine last night. She seems to read his mind, pointing into the kitchen. "There's coffee in the pitcher."

Adam nods, following the smell and taking a mug out of the cabinet that says _1983 Talent Show Runner-Up_ printed on the side—Blake's mug, clearly, which reminds Adam to bring up his pageant days later as merciless teasing material—and pours himself a sizable amount of coffee to clear the prickles from behind his eyes. When he starts to feel a little more like a human again and less like a poorly stuffed scarecrow, he walks over to the living room where Dorothy is draping garlands over windowsills.

"I know, it's soon," she says. "But I can't help it. It feels like I spend all year waitin' for Christmas."

"Need any help?"

"You don't have to, honey," she says. "But you can let me know what you think."

"Of what?"

She grabs his hand and leads him over to the hearth, where a shiny silver menorah is sitting above the fireplace. "This one's for you."

"Wow," Adam says, a funny twisting in his stomach. "This is—wow, this is really sweet of you."

"Just want you to feel at home," she says, giving him a bright smile and pat on the arm before heading back to straightening out the garlands. 

Adam stays behind to trace the curves of each candle holder, feeling the metallic coolness of it. There's even a tiny dreidel right underneath, perched right next to it. Adam's about as low-key as a Jew can get, but this tiny display of Hanukkah pride right in the middle of a Christmas explosion is almost making him emotional. It hits him then how much he feels like part of the family, how much he likes these people and they seem to like him, how nice it's been being around them.

"I know y'all probably won't come down here for the holidays," Dorothy says while she ruffles the garlands into place over the doorway. "But I just want you to know that you're welcome. Just in case."

Adam looks at her, her soft brown hair and her even softer eyes, dimples just like Blake's, and in that moment, misses his own mother slightly less as she smiles at him. Everybody here, they've made this so easy, so happy, and by doing so, have made Adam's life infinitely harder because there's a good chance he won't get this again, Dorothy putting up the menorah and treating him like her son, not when this is over.

He reaches out and hugs her, torn somewhere between feeling at home and being incredibly homesick. She hugs him back, patting him between the shoulder blades, and Adam is already missing this.

\--

The day zooms by in a whirl of decorations. By the afternoon, everybody's been knee-deep in the decoration box and helping to turn the place into a palace of tinsel and garlands, Mike digging out his old Bing Crosby tapes— _tapes_ , Adam can hardly believe it—and setting the mood.

It's fun. They don't really do this at Adam's house, the most his family ever ends up doing never really exceeding a few lights up on the roof to fit in with the neighborhood, so being swept up in the festivities here is a welcome change, especially the bit where he got to see Blake stumble around a ladder trying to hang lights from the roof's gutters while he watched from a safe distance drinking hot cider.

They all celebrate their hard work with a classic black-and-white holiday movie in the evening, piling into the living room while Mike sorts through the DVD rack for the best choice of film. It's not until Adam heads to the kitchen to work on popcorn duty that he sees that Blake's outside, sitting on the porch steps, thick coat around him, instead of in the snug warmth inside. Adam sticks the popcorn bags in the microwave, listening to the mechanical hum of it, and decides to go out after him.

"What are you doing out here?" Adam asks, stepping outside and pulling his cardigan around his chest a little more securely. The patio door creaks shut behind him. "It's cold as balls."

"Nah, just a little fresh," Blake insists. He pats the spot on the step next to him, scooting over to make room. "Come over here."

It really is too cold for this, but Adam has to admit, there is a certain magic in seeing the night sky like this. He appreciates it every time Blake takes him out here to the Midwest: the way the stars are perfectly clear, an endless canvas of glittering lights, no LA pollution to hide behind. He gives in to Blake's request, sitting down next to him. The wood of the stairs is cold underneath him, immediately pulling shivers to his skin.

"I know, you're too much of a California boy to survive a little chill in the air," Blake says, grinning. "But an evening under seventy degrees won't kill you, I promise."

"You're hilarious," Adam says, huddling into himself to conserve warmth. "I know what the cold feels like." He looks over at Blake, sitting tall and relaxed next to him, warmth radiating from his body. Blake has winter stored in his bones, even after spending so much time in California. Adam's seen all the pictures hanging in the hallway of teeny young Blake bundled up for a snowy morning, ice up to his knees in the driveway. He can't even imagine.

"Here," Blake says, curling his arm around Adam's shoulder and pulling him in close to share his heat. "Isn't the sky nice?"

Adam tips his head back, staring up at the black blanket of stars, how the longer he gazes up, the more seem to pop out of the sky. There's something very serene about watching them, about focusing on the strong light of the cratered moon. It's almost like seeing the universe like this reminds him of how small he is, how inconsequential they all are, how the little moments matter more than all the pompous Hollywood hooplala he gets swept up in sometimes. Being out here really seems to put it all into perspective. 

"I get why you like coming here," Adam says.

"You mean the porch?"

"Oklahoma," Adam corrects. "It's nice. Just to breathe once in a while. Stop thinking so much."

Never mind that he's been doing more thinking than ever since he came here with Blake, but he can see how all the nature and the space and the quiet can really do wonders for someone's personal recharging. Then again, he knew all along that this wouldn't exactly be a soothing trip, not when they came here with an agenda and a performance to put on. He's not even officially here as Adam, Blake's friend, but as Adam, Blake's boyfriend, and that's made so many things different. He knew it would, and he expected as much, but it's like he never quite thought it would end up feeling this... real.

"I know," Blake says. "Don't get me wrong, LA's nice, Nashville's nice, but this—it's just home." He sighs. "And it's nice that you're here too, Adam."

He tucks Adam that much closer, thumb brushing back and forth on his shoulder blade through his cardigan. Blake's like an oven, the warmth of his body pressed against Adam's overwhelmingly relaxing.

Without meaning to, Adam thinks about Miranda, if Blake ever took her out here on the porch like this and talked about the stars with her. If she fit into his side like this. If his hand touched her back like this. If Blake's wishing she were here right now instead of Adam.

"Is it helping?" he asks instead of what he really wants to ask, which is _are you thinking about her or me right now?_ "Being here. Is it helping it all get better?"

"Whaddya mean?"

Maybe he shouldn't have said anything. He's not—it's not like—even with everything Blake's told him, Adam isn't under any kind of illusion that Blake owes him first-class information into his divorce, but he can't stop thinking about it. 

"I mean Miranda," he finally says, looking down from the stars and at his knees. "I know you think your mother's wrong, but I don't think she is. I know you've been... sad." The word doesn't feel adequate enough to really cover how Blake's probably been feeling. Some days he just seems like a shell of a man, a little shipwrecked, a little unsure of himself after two failed marriages, but then he covers it all back up the moment he sees someone looking. Adam doesn't need the cover-up, never did. "I just want to know if this—any of this—has been helping."

Blake sighs again, a little resigned this time. "Okay. You're right, and she's right too," he admits. "At least you were. But I feel better every day. And I know you think me asking you to do this was stupid, but having you here—Adam, it's definitely helping." He swallows, the sound a little shaky. "You're a great friend to me, Adam. I'm damn lucky."

His breath exhales on Adam's temple, a warm, slow gust of air that makes Adam shiver. Any other time, Adam would smile and agree and slap Blake on the back and get to his feet to head back inside, but something about this moment feels fragile, and Adam can't bring his feet to move. 

"I thought I knew what I needed for a long time, but I'm finally starting to realize all I really need—all I really want is someone around who cares," Blake says. "I had it in my head that nobody—well."

His breath seems to catch a little bit near the end there, and Adam tells himself that people are watching, tells himself that the yellow lamplight filtering in from the windows behind them means Blake's family is nearby, and that that explains why he shifts his head and touches Blake's cheek and kisses him, just a soft touch of lips that Adam reasons could be a friendly thing, an encouragement of sorts. Blake makes a noise, a gently surprised hum, but he doesn't pull back, leaning into the kiss with a firmness that makes Adam want to sob because _this_ , this realness, this is what he can't and hasn't been able to explain since they started this ridiculous charade. Why it feels so natural.

"Sorry," Adam says on a soft gasp when he pulls back, their foreheads touching. "Your mom—I saw her watching."

It's a lie, Blake must know it's a lie, but he doesn't question it, just furls his hand around Adam's ear to touch the short hair behind it and nods.

"Okay," he says. His eyes are focused on Adam with an intensity that's almost overwhelming. "Good thinking."

He leans down again before Adam can do it himself, something in his bones aching to do so, to stay as close to Blake as he can, and their lips brush again, Blake's warm hand cupping his cheek. Adam's fingers find Blake's hair, the soft curl of it gentle against his palm, and when his nails just barely scratch against Blake's scalp, all of Blake shudders, shudders right into Adam, and yes, _yes_ , can they just keep doing this all night—

The porch door squeaking open and Endy sticking her head out puts a quick end to that train of thought.

"Boys," she says. "Come on in already. We've got the movie all set up."

Adam pulls away from Blake like there are cameras watching, which is stupid, because like he's been reminding himself this whole time, their charade is meant to be seen, but something about that moment—all the moments, lately—just seemed private, like it was completely outside of the show, outside of the stage, outside of the hoax. He shivers again, instantly reminded of his surroundings—the hard cold wooden step beneath him, the crisp night air around him—finding himself unable to figure out if he's glad Endy interrupted or if he's annoyed that she did.

"Okay," Blake says. "We'll be right in."

He gets to his feet almost abruptly, inhaling sharply and not looking at Adam, not even close to where Adam is.

\--

They watch It's A Wonderful Life, and the movie runs well past midnight, multiple rounds of popcorn working their way through the living room.

Adam sits on the floor in front of Blake's chair, right between his legs and with his head leaning back against the soft side of Blake's knee. Blake's hand rests on his shoulder while the movie plays, and when George Bailey says "I'll give you the moon, Mary," his fingers tighten on Adam just a fraction.

\--

"Being my boyfriend isn't so bad, right?" Blake asks after they're back upstairs and slipped into bed.

It makes Adam desperately wants to crack a joke, but honestly, it isn't. It almost scares him how nice it's been, and it's even scarier when he realizes that he keeps almost forgetting about this entire lie until Blake brings it up again.

Blake is leaning his temple against the headboard, their thighs touching on this ridiculously small bed, and Adam's smiles and digs his elbow into Blake's ribcage to try and think about something—anything—other than how nice it is to see Blake's eyes from this close. "Yeah," he says. "Too bad I'm not your real boyfriend, huh?"

Blake scratches his jaw and laughs, but it sounds a little flat. "Well, you could be."

"Yeah, but you kind of need feelings for that kind of thing to work," Adam says.

"Right," Blake says. He sounds like his mind is somewhere else, and it doesn't sound like too pleasant a place. Adam wants, more than he's ever wanted anything else, to know what he's thinking. He used to think that Blake is so transparent, but he isn't, he's full of layers and complexities and even after all this time Adam feels like he's only about halfway through understanding them all. "We should really get to sleep."

"Yeah," Adam says, soft but not quite in agreement. 

What he really wants to do is stay up for a few more hours and just keep talking, like they always did when they first met, so fascinated with each other and the differences in their lives, their childhoods, their music, but maybe this time they could talk about the opposite, about how much changed. How they seem to share so much these days.

Blake turns off the light on the nightstand before Adam can find a way to say as much, bathing them in darkness. 

\--

"Okay, so you know that thing I told you about? That me and Blake were doing?"

Michael pauses for a moment on the other end of the phone call. "Yeah."

Adam rubs the bridge of his nose, pinching it. "That might've been a bad idea."

\--

It all comes to a head one night later.

They're in the living room, one of Adam's legs draped over Blake's lap and one of Blake's hands curled around his knee while Blake flips from channel to channel on the TV and Adam dicks around on his phone, both of them too full from dinner to bother moving for the next few hours—that is, up until Blake's stepdad walks into the room, arms across his chest.

"Adam, can I talk to you for a moment?"

Adam shares a quick glance with Blake, who seems just as unaware as to what's coming to him. Adam gingerly gets to his feet, straightening out his shirt.

"Uh, sure," he says.

"Come on over here."

Mike cocks his head over to the kitchen, guiding Adam over by the fridge where the rest of the family is out of earshot. Adam's gearing himself up for The Talk 2.0, maybe this time accentuated by Mike taking him out to the garden shed and showing off his impressive collection of weaponry, but much to his surprise, Mike looks rather apologetic.

"Adam, I wanted to say I'm sorry for how I was treatin' you," he says, voice low. He moves his hand to Adam's shoulder, the touch almost parental. "I kept thinkin' that you two were, I don't know. Messin' around. Just passin' the time, and I knew that wasn't what Blake needed right now, but I was wrong." He smiles. "You're good for him."

A warmth spreads through Adam that feels like a tight hug, the sensation riding high for a second before warping into the guilt Adam can't seem to shake, getting stronger every day he spends here and someone looks at him and Blake and seems happy for them.

"You think so?" Adam asks.

"I do. I've been watchin' the way you look at him and I think—no, I know this is something real, I know that you love him. I shouldn't have doubted you."

_I know that you love him_. Adam tries to swallow, a thickness in his throat that's almost making him nauseous.

"I—yeah. Yeah, I do."

He means it. He can't believe it, but he means it, he really does love Blake, and it wasn't supposed to happen this way, it wasn't supposed to go like this. Mike smiles at him and pulls him into a hug that Adam doesn't even feel like he deserves, because he's essentially failed his mission that Blake asked him to do, which was so simple. Pretend to be his boyfriend for a few days in Oklahoma to smooth some ruffled feathers. _Pretend_. Blake was never not clear on that.

How could he have not paid attention? How could he have not _listened?_ Or more importantly, how could he have gone years of seeing Blake as what he thought so surely he was: a strong, dependable, funny guy to have a good time with, and then one silly trip to Oklahoma later and all that is turned on its head. How could that have happened?

He's confused, and angry at himself, and suddenly can't be here anymore, standing amidst the love and laughter of Blake's family in their cozy living room. He excuses himself, slipping away from Mike and out of the kitchen and upstairs as fast as he can, feeling sick to his stomach and stupid and like a complete cliche.

He can't do this. He can't sit here and fall in love with Blake and just let it all happen—it's just not an option. He went into this thinking it would be a little awkward but ultimately easy, just a silly little hoax to smooth things over in the Shelton family, and instead it's killing him, it's picking him apart piece by piece and he can't do this anymore.

He doesn't even realize he's throwing clothes together until he sees his half-full suitcase, loaded with messy lumps of unfolded belongings that he's tossing into a pile. It's a total wreck, none of it even remotely organized, even some of Blake's clothing mixed in, like the pajama pants he's let Adam wear for days now. Adam throws them back out, not sure of anything except that he has to go. He's stayed past Thanksgiving, and that's good enough, isn't it? He's done more than plenty for Blake already, more than Blake ever should've asked him to, and if he wanted to leave now, he'd have every right. What was Blake expecting, that he'd take all this make-believe with a big smile, that he'd have fun here? Everything is a complete nightmare and he just has to _go_.

Halfway into his frenzy and the suitcase almost full, the door opens and Adam's heart drops when he sees Blake standing in the doorway.

"Adam," Blake says, eyes falling on the suitcase, on the mess inside, on the frantic, wild way Adam's holding himself. "Are you—are you leaving?"

"I—no. Yeah. I mean." Adam squeezes the bridge of his nose. "I don't think—I can't do this anymore."

He wants to say _I think I'm in love with you_ and _every time I think about your ex wife I feel my stomach drop_ and _this is too fucking much for me_ , but no words are coming out.

He swears he can hear Blake swallow from here. "Do what?"

"Be your boyfriend," Adam says, quickly adding, " _Pretend._ It's too weird. I thought I could handle it, but I can't."

"Woah, hey," Blake says, seizing his wrist. His hand is so warm, so careful that Adam can't help but stop moving. "Adam, I'm sorry. I know this is hard. Hell, I never should've asked you to do this and I know that."

Fuck, hearing him apologize only makes everything worse. Blake sounds so strained, like he's sure he just ruined everything, like he's right back where he started after the divorce, convinced that he's alone and that nobody actually cares, and this is the complete opposite of what Adam wanted.

"Just—don't leave, all right?" Blake asks—begs, really. "We can work something out. I can tell my family if you want."

The more he talks, full of desperation and apology, the worse Adam feels, because Blake never asks him for favors, hardly ever imposes, and the one time he does, Adam can't follow through? What the hell is wrong with him? He said he'd be there, he said he'd do this, and he can't let Blake down, not when he's already done a spectacular job of doing so by screwing all this up, even if Blake doesn't know that. Blake steps closer, his hands reaching for Adam's forearms, and a slew of different urges hit Adam all at once. Stay, go, run, help, _keep_.

"No," Adam says. "No, don't tell them. I—I told you I'd do this and I will. Okay?"

"You don't have to."

"I know," Adam says. "It's just a few more days." It's the homestretch, he tells himself. "We can make it a few more days."

"Okay," Blake agrees. He sounds timid, like anything sharper and he'll spook Adam into running off, but he agrees nonetheless.

\--

The next day is a little tense. Blake's side of the bed is already empty when Adam's awake, and on the other end of the room, the half-packed suitcase stays where it is like an ominous reminder of Adam's disloyalty. He feels terrible just looking at it, like one of those assholes who can't handle their baser urges and has to bulldoze through good friendships because of it, never mind the promise he made to Blake to come here and do this, and certainly not fall in love along the way.

The best he can do is hope—although he doesn't have too much of that—that everything will go back to normal when they go home, that this was all just a side effect of being caught up in the whirlwind of the story. 

Blake is unbelievably stiff with him all day, like he'[s trying to give Adam the space he thinks he wants. He touches him only when it's necessary, barely even stands close to him, and all of Blake's newfound reluctance to so much as sneeze in Adam's direction must make it so blatantly obvious that something's different between them.

Nobody seems to pick up on it, which Adam counts as a fortunate shot of luck—up until Blake takes a very intentional shit on that shot of luck.

"Hey, everyone," Blake says. He waits until after dinner, when everybody's crowded in the living room together, and he stands in the doorway with his hands deep in his pockets, an uneasy edge to his eyes. "Can y'all listen up just for a second?"

Adam feels something in his stomach drop. Hot panic spreads through his chest because he's pretty sure he knows what's happening here, and no, _no_ , he told Blake he didn't have to do this, but he's doing it anyway, the bastard.

"I have to tell you something, and it'll shock you, but whatever you do, don't be mad at Adam for this."

"Blake," Adam says, but Blake doesn't heed his warning.

"No, it's all right," he says, like this is something Adam _wants_. It isn't. "Adam and I aren't really together."

The silence that hits the living room is almost oppressive. Adam can't look at any of them, can only bear to look at the carpet under his knee.

"What?" Dorothy says.

"We're not a couple," Blake tells her. "And I'm so sorry for lying, but I just wanted to show y'all I was okay. After the divorce, momma, you were just so _sad_ and you were so convinced that I was too, and that I was lonely, and I just didn't want you worrying about me not being okay, that's all."

Adam still can't look up at anybody. He doesn't—he has no fucking clue how Blake thought that this would work, and he wants to be angry because they worked hard for this ridiculous farce, and now all of it doesn't matter and Blake's family is going to hate Adam for a reason much worse than maybe breaking their son's heart down the line.

"Now, it really isn't Adam's fault," Blake says. "I asked him to do it and he was nice enough to say yes even though he really didn't have to. He's a great friend, he really is."

Fuck just staring at the floor, Adam wants it to completely swallow him. He doesn't know how this evening could possibly get any worse, unless, of course, within the next sixty seconds, his mother will materialize beside him for no reason other than to also be disappointed in him. He can feel everybody's eyes on him like lasers, judging him, hating him, wondering why the hell they trusted him in the first place.

"You're not dating," Mike says slowly. "You never were dating?"

"No, sir."

Adam puts a hand over his forehead, doing his best to shield himself from everybody else in the room. More than ever before, he's wondering what kind of complete idiot goes along with a stunt like this? He can only imagine what everybody's thinking, and he can't blame them. This was so _stupid_. Grade-A, downright stupid.

"Blake," Dorothy says, her voice crisp, and Adam can hear the groan of the couch like she's gotten to her feet, probably to strike fear for lying into their hearts that mothers do best when standing up. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure, momma."

Adam hears them walk away, feels the vibrations of their footsteps underneath him, and that makes him even angrier than before because Blake somehow thinks it's a good idea to leave Adam alone with his family to deal with the fallout of his confession. He feels a little sick, and extremely embarrassed, and completely unsure of what he's supposed to say. He can't even _look_ at them, for god's sake.

"Uh," he finally says, sitting up and uncovering his forehead. He still can't look at them; he looks somewhere up and to the left of all their heads. "I think I'll just—I should go."

And he means up to his room, but really, he should just leave the premises entirely. There's absolutely no reason for him to be here anymore, not when the story they've created has crashed around them and he's pretty sure everybody now thinks he's the scum of the earth.

"Adam, you don't have to go," Endy says. "It's okay."

No, no, it is definitely not okay, but Adam can't say he doesn't appreciate the sentiment. He gets to his feet, wishing more than anything that he was at home right now helping his mom stuff turkey slices into Tupperware, somewhere warm and familiar and where he preferably hasn't lied to everybody in the vicinity for the better part of two weeks.

"Tell Blake I'm upstairs," Adam says. "If he asks."

The walk upstairs to the guest room feels completely fuzzy to him after that. It's like his mind is just full of static, buzzing, piercing, unable to process anything except the clear knowledge that he shouldn't be here. He knows that it was rude to up and leave like that, but he couldn't have possibly sat around the table and continued playing card games and acting like everything is okay. They would've all had questions, things like _why would you do that? What kind of person agrees to something like that? Are you really just friends? Why didn't you say anything?_ and he doesn't have a single answer.

He doesn't know how long he sits up there, restless on the bed, having no clue what to do next. Blake does this to him sometimes, brings out emotions he hasn't dealt with in ages. This, right here, he feels like he's back in high school, not all too confident with himself, no idea where he fits in, and he's getting flashes of that now, although if there's one thing he knows for sure its that he doesn't fit in _here_. He's basically ruined Thanksgiving here and might've even had a hand in severing Blake's relationship with his own family, and none of that is an ingredient to a clean conscience.

And then there's what makes it all worse, that elephant in the room he can't even look in the eye, the fact that Adam's complicated everything by reacting to all this so unexpectedly, that he's started feeling things, that he's looking at Blake in ways he's not sure he can take back. It's not like he'll go home and Blake'll go elsewhere and everything will go back to normal, some sort of what happens in Okhlahoma stays in Oklahoma mentality—no, this visit will be over and everything will still be _terrible_ because Adam will never be able to look at Blake again without thinking about how nice it was to wake up with Blake's even breaths on his back and body heat behind him.

At one point, Adam has no point when, there's a gentle rapping on the door, and it tilts open to reveal Blake stepping in.

"Hey," Blake says. Adam wants to make fun of him—who knocks on their own door?—but he still feels way too out of place to throw a joke out there. "You okay?"

_You didn't have to do it,_ Adam wants to say. He knows that he was ready to hightail it out of here yesterday, but fuck, Blake didn't have to do it. _I wouldn't have minded. We could've kept it up._

"Yeah," Adam says. "But I think—I should probably go."

"No, you don't have to."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

" _No_ , I mean it," Blake says. He makes a move as if to reach out and seize Adam's arm, but his hand stops halfway, lingering helplessly in the air. "I told them what happened. I said you didn't have anything to do with it."

Adam snorts. He's pretty sure everything he did, everything he said—he had something to do with it. A main role, at that. "And what did your mother say to that?"

"She's pissed at me for lying," Blake admits. He looks a little wrung out. "And that I put you through what I did."

"What about me? I lied too."

"She thinks I don't deserve you," he says. He puts his hand on his neck, rubbing, not looking Adam in the eye. "And she's right. Everything you did for me—"

"I'd do it again," Adam says. Blurts out, more like. He shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't say anything _at all_ , really, but he can't seem to control his mouth. "I mean. I don't regret helping you. I regret making your family hate me, but not anything else."

"They don't," Blake insists. "And they want you to stay. And I want you to stay."

Adam can't tell if these are Blake's manners kicking in, telling him to ask Adam to stick around, to not make him feel unwanted, or if he genuinely doesn't want him to leave. All he can think is that if Blake really wanted him here, he wouldn't have let their lie collapse around them like balloons popping, with him the one holding the needle, no less.

The bottom line is that he doesn't need to be here anymore, and Blake must know that. He could still go home, still catch the end of his own family's Thanksgiving celebration and spend some time shaking off this entire disaster of a trip while he's at home in California.

"I just don't think—I've done enough damage, you know?" Adam says. He drags his hand down his face, trying to rub away that furrow to his brow that he can't smooth away that's starting to give him a headache. "And I know you're trying to be nice—"

"I'm not," Blake cuts in, a rare, almost pleasing edge to his voice. He sounds desperate, voice sharp, but when Adam looks up at him, he looks helpless, back hunched in on itself and face pale in the darkness. "I want you to stay. It would just kill me if you went home now and this is how we left things—please, Adam."

Adam wants to say no. He thinks of his mother's potatoes, the big warm backyard behind his childhood home, his brother's long hugs, his uncle's dessert recipes. He should be there, and if he gets on a plane tonight, he could already be there tomorrow morning.

"Okay," Adam says, despite himself. He feels a little hollow under his ribs and just wants this conversation done with. "Fine."

"Okay," Blake says too. "Okay, you'll stay?"

Adam nods. He has no idea why Blake would want him to stay, except to maybe make sure their friendship is still intact despite the complete mess this past week made of it, and he has no reason to stick around, but for some reason, looking at Blake while he's in this frayed, miserable state edges him toward calm, toward the resolution to stay. 

"Listen, I'm gonna sleep downstairs," Blake says. His hand is back on his neck, and if he scratches that same spot any more, Adam is pretty sure it's going to start bleeding. "You stay here, and I'll take the couch."

"Don't be stupid," Adam says. "You're twice the size of that thing. You'll fall right off."

"It's okay," Blake says. "You're my guest, all right? Just take the mattress."

Adam wants him to stay here. The bed is too damn small and they can hardly share it without their knees bumping but Adam wants him here, snoring a few feet away, pulling on the covers. He doesn't know how he can say it out loud, he's not even sure if there is a way, but he wants. Shit, does he _want_.

He watches Blake grab his pajamas and slip back out the door, unable to come up with the right words to make this better.

\--

Every bone in Adam's body is tense when he's lying in bed the next morning. He hates himself a little bit for not putting his foot down and insisting to leave last night, especially when now in the light of day, on a mattress that suddenly feels too big for just him alone, he feels like a kid who wakes up first at a slumber party, unsure of where he's allowed to go, whose toes he'll be stepping on if he leaves the room. He got horribly used to waking up and his heart looking out of his eyes and landing on Blake, asleep and handsome and peaceful, and this morning there's nothing but en empty side of the bed to greet him.

His stomach rumbles after nine a.m. hits and rolls on by without him eating breakfast, but he just can't bring himself to go downstairs and let himself into the fridge like everything is fucking hunky-dory.

It's almost laughable how much of a coward he's being, and Adam knows it, but this isn't as easy as overcoming a little stage fright. Adam is used to that, to the nerves that coil up in his stomach when he's standing backstage and all the worst-case-scenarios possible on a stage flash through his mind, and he's learned how to deal with that over the years, but there's something so very different about him impressing a crowd of fans versus fixing the botched impression Blake's family must have of him after last night. 

At ten a.m., there's a knock at the bedroom door. Adam opens it, expecting Blake taking pity on him with a plate of breakfast leftovers, but it isn't Blake, it's his stepdad.

"No yoga this morning?" he asks.

Weirdly enough, he looks kinder than he has during Adam's entire visit. Which, Adam realizes dryly, might have to do with the fact that Mike can rest easy now knowing that Adam hasn't bewitched Blake into being a homo.

"Well," Adam says. He has no legitimate explanation except that it felt awkward leaving the room and facing everybody, even if Blake is right and nobody's mad at him for pulling the wool over all their eyes.

"You were scared to come downstairs," Mike fills in for him. "C'mon," he coaxes. "Come on outside. I was hopin' you could teach me somethin'. One of those real easy yoga maneuvers, maybe."

Adam's eyebrows raise into his hairline. "Really?"

"Why not? It's good for you, ain't it?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"All right then. Let's do this."

He turns around and heads back down the hall before Adam can get another word in. It's all so strange that Adam has to stop and wonder if any of this is even real life, if he's really about to teach Blake's stepfather the basics of yoga, but it seems to be reality, so he seizes his mat, throws on a hoodie, and follows him down the stairs.

"You can relax, son," Mike says when they get outside. "Nobody's upset with you."

Adam drops his mat on the ground, unrolling it with a few nudges of his foot. "I don't really get why."

"What, you want us to be upset with you?"

"No, just." Adam pushes his hand through his hair. "It would make sense if you were mad."

"Well, we're not," Mike says, voice firm. "We actually talked about it after you hightailed it upstairs yesterday and truth is, we're all pretty damn impressed about the kind of friend you are."

"I—what?"

"You think just everybody would do that for their friend?" Mike asks. "We're just glad that Blake's got someone like you looking out for him."

Adam doesn't even know what to say. All he knows is that he was not expecting _this_. Maybe a stern telling off, or a smack over the back of the head, or even a deadly quiet request for him to pack up and leave, but not this.

He can't help but think about what Mike's said— _you think just everybody would do that for their friend?_ For Adam, it had been easy. Of course he'd help out Blake, even if it was weird and uncomfortable and there are a million things he'd rather be doing. Blake would do the same for him. Blake _has_. Maybe not quite the same favor, but when Adam needs someone, whether it's a ride to the airport or a piece of gum after lunch or someone to tell him that he's good at what he does, Blake's there.

"And for the record," Mike says, and either Adam's imagining things, or his eyes even look a little sad. "I can't think of anybody out there who Blake would've been luckier to have than you."

Adam really, _really_ wasn't expecting this. He was so sure for so long, even when Mike seemed to come around that night after Thanksgiving, that Mike was dead-set against the idea of him and Blake dating, whether it was out of homophobia or missing Miranda or even just not thinking Adam was a compatible fit for him, but maybe Mike changed his mind, or maybe Adam was wrong from the beginning. It would probably feel better if it actually mattered now.

Mike points at the yoga mat. "All right, so we gonna do this, or what? How do I start?"

"Right," Adam says, remembering the task at hand. He's still a little caught up in just how easily he got off the hook here. "Step on the mat."

"This is going to be simple, right? What's so funny?"

"Sorry," Adam says. "I just—I've never seen anybody do yoga in cowboy boots before."

"Well, you're gonna," Mike says, stepping onto the mat with his boots firmly in place. "Where do I begin?"

\--

Somehow, things are weirder between them after they break the news than before.

It was only a few days, but it's like Adam and Blake have been conditioned, used to touching each other like couples do, used to the charade. The moment Blake sees Adam down in the kitchen after finishing up his yoga lesson with Mike, Blake approaches him, then stops abruptly halfway there as if remembering that he no longer has to tuck Adam into his side and pretend they're in love.

It hurts more than it fucking should.

The worst part is that a lot of the stuff they did to prove their faux-romance they already did long before, like Blake kissing him on the temple or making grabs for his hand or giving him those long bear hugs, but now all of it feels extremely taboo, and Adam is left with a hollowness in his gut as he realizes that they've sort of permanently marred every aspect of their friendship with this pretend relationship. He doesn't know how that's even possible, how a few days could overwrite years of habit, how Blake's body stands for different things now, reminds him of different things, but it does.

It's enough to make Adam consider leaving early anyway, not because he's offended Blake's family, who's as warm to him as ever, but because how it is now is so fucking uncomfortable. Blake doesn't get too close to him and sits on the opposite side of the table during meals and everybody watches them none-too-discreetly out of the corners of their eyes when they're standing near each other, looking for god knows what.

They have these weird, uncomfortable little moments where they'll fall back into their old step and gravitate towards each other, and then at the last second, Blake will seem to remember that the charade is over and immediately back away, leaving Adam with just a ghost of his body heat before it fades. Blake's face is constantly sculpted into a forced nonchalance that's betrayed by expressions of guilt every time Adam sneaks a look at him, and if they were pretending before, it's nothing compared to how hard they're pretending now, except this time, it's being a-okay when they're clearly not that they're bluffing about. Adam can't tell if Blake's the uncomfortable one or if he's assuming that Adam is, if they're just not communicating anything at all here. 

It's fucking _frustrating_ , and the most frustrating part is that Adam is officially sure he's not making scar tissue for Blake here, he's just prying the wound open and pouring salt in and making it that much worse.

\--

So they aren't flat-out avoiding each other. But they _are_ spending most of their time with people who aren't each other.

When Blake isn't downstairs sneaking alcohol out of the cellar—which isn't lost on Adam, especially when it happens in the middle of the fucking afternoon—he's in the backyard chopping firewood with Mike, leaving Adam to stake his claim in the kitchen, which is clearly a good choice since he spends his day being fed by Dorothy wanting his opinion on food she's preparing.

"Adam, baby," Dorothy calls out. "Come taste this, would you?"

She holds out a wooden spoon and Adam dutifully licks off the end, trying a steamy potato soup that tastes like what a day harvesting farm vegetables must be like. Earthy, hearty, warm.

"You like it?" she asks. Adam nods, and after she takes the spoon back, she leans in close and whispers, "Does he know?"

"Sorry?"

She has a small knowing smile on her face that Adam realizes with a pang he's seen before on his own mother. It's the kind of look only mothers can have, one that makes Adam feel like she's just read his diary. He doesn't even have a diary, but that's how it feels.

"Blake," she explains. "Does he know how you feel?"

"What?"

"If you're waitin' for him to pick up on it by himself, he won't. I dropped him too many damn times as a kid for him to pick up on those signals you're sending."

" _What_?"

"Adam, good lord, don't play dumb," she says. She lowers her voice a little bit more. "I was watchin' you two. You had us all believin', and if that was all fake, y'all deserve Oscars for all that actin'."

"It wasn't—Blake doesn't think about me like that," Adam says.

"But you do?"

Dear god, Adam can't believe he's having this conversation with her. If he would have known that this is how his visit to Oklahoma would end, with him hunched over in the kitchen with Dorothy whispering about his crush on Blake, he never would've stepped foot out of LA. A hot blush takes control of his cheeks.

"It doesn't matter," Adam says, rubbing his hand over the lines in his forehead. He swears that Blake is responsible for all of them. "I just got caught up in this whole story and I'll get over it."

Dorothy tuts. She slides her hand over Adam's wrist, giving it a soft pat. "What if you don't have to?" She pokes his wrist bone. "I think you two would be awful cute together."

Adam's pretty sure that if he had food in his mouth right now, he'd be choking on it.

"As nice as it is to have your blessing, Dorothy," he says carefully, "I don't think Blake agrees."

"Well, have you asked him?" She shakes his shoulder. "Come on, where's that rockstar confidence?"

Adam doesn't even know where to begin with how little that applies here. That cockiness, that arrogance that the press loves to grill him for and that he loves to play up on camera—it didn't just come right out of his bones. There are days when he wakes up and he almost forgets that he isn't that weird skinny pimpled kid he was back in high school, and there are moments behind the curtains where he can hear the crowd yelling and he's so sure he's going to mess it up. Still, it's easy to be conceited when it's only about himself, for him to build himself up and remind himself that he's a damn good singer and people love him and he could pull off pretty much every hairstyle he'd like, it's a whole different ballgame when there's somebody else involved. He can't look at Blake and tell himself _now this one, he loves me_. He has no right, he has no _clue_.

He thinks about the day Blake moved in with him, hunched and miserable, and for how long he wore that ring before it disappeared off his hand. How dragged down with sadness he was, how Adam knew that he spent every day wondering what it was that wasn't working, what drove people away. For a while, Adam was certain that Blake missed Miranda, missed being married, missed his old house and his old life and there was nothing Adam could do, but then Blake came up with that crazy request of his for Adam to pose as his boyfriend and somehow, _somehow_ , he seems to be better. Happier. More like himself. Adam has to wonder—he just has to—if maybe he's responsible. If there really might be even the slightest chance that this isn't all just coming from Adam's side and that Blake might be feeling this too.

"Adam," Dorothy says, squeezing his arm, "if you can ask out all those drop dead gorgeous supermodels I've seen you with, then you can ask out Blake. I promise you."

He laughs, dropping his face into his hands. That was different, so totally different, because this is _Blake_ , someone he knows, someone who's already worked his way past all of Adam's cocky barriers, has already seen all sides of him. The sore loser, the insecure kid, the over-caffeinated weirdo.

And miraculously, he's still around, and not just that, Blake chose him to be his fake boyfriend, Blake chose to turn to his door when he wanted a place to hunker down and stay. That has to count for something.

"Okay," Adam says, carefully nodding. "I'll think about it."

"Atta boy," Dorothy says. She turns back to her soup, and Adam can't help but think that even if he's missing out on the certainty that this is a good idea, Blake's mother seems confident enough for the both of them.

\--

He thinks about it more during lunch. Blake isn't sitting next to him anymore, now on the opposite side of the table, presumably to give Adam breathing room or other such bullshit he really doesn't need, but he does keep sneaking glances at Adam, whether he notices he's doing it or not. Adam would give anything to be able to crawl across the table and dig his way into Blake's mind, see what's hiding behind his stubborn skull. Does he regret telling everybody the truth? Is he still thinking about the two of them, is he thinking about how good it started feeling to pretend?

Blake isn't able to read into minds either, made obvious by the fact that he doesn't telepathically pick up on all these questions storming Adam's mind and answer them for him. It makes Adam come to the grim conclusion that if he wants to know anything, really get to the bottom of this and see if it's worth pursuing or not, he'll have to outright ask. Fuck, is he not looking forward to that.

He drones out most of the conversation wafting around the table as they eat, his thoughts occupying him too much to participate. He hears bits and pieces here and there—the soup is great, what are Blake's plans for Christmas, what does everybody think of the decorations—but can't focus enough to actually join in on the conversation. He's pretty sure they all think he's uncomfortable out of his mind to still be hanging around here, but after his chat with Dorothy—hell, not just that. After the menorah and doing yoga with Mike and Endy telling him embarrassing stories about Blake and so, so much more, he's starting to believe that they not only all want him here, but they maybe even want him with Blake.

Heaven knows that Adam wants that too.

He's not sure how to go about doing anything about it—at least not here, not when their trip is almost over. They're going home tomorrow, early in the afternoon, and then Adam will have a three-hour flight and some time to himself to really think how to go about this best, how to not screw anything up in the process. He knows Blake won't hate him if he finds out that Adam—at the risk of sounding like an eight-year-old—has a crush on him, but he also isn't sure just how he _would_ react, if he'd laugh it off, or make fun, or awkwardly shuffle around not knowing what to say and then surreptitiously avoid Adam until work calls them both back in. So if nothing else, Adam knows he has to pick the right time for this. Whenever the hell that possibly could be.

He goes upstairs to start—or finish, really—packing up his things after he's digested lunch, and when he walks into his room, Blake is there, coming out of the bathroom and jolting when he sees Adam.

"Damn, you scared me," he says. His toothbrush is in his hand and a towel is in the other. Adam realizes then that Blake's suitcase is missing, no longer propped up by the window, like Blake has been sneaking up here clearing out his things when Adam's not in the room. "Didn't know you were in here. Sorry about bargin' in, just have to grab some stuff outta the bathroom."

"Yeah, sure," Adam says. "You don't have to evacuate the premises, you know. You can keep using the fucking bathroom. I won't—" He sighs. "You don't have to treat me like I'm going anywhere if you breathe on me the wrong way. I'm not."

Blake doesn't look convinced. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah." He sits on the edge of the bed. "Besides, you're so fucking annoying like this."

Blake huffs, startled, and lifts his eyebrows upwards. "Like what, exactly?"

"All _nice_ and like—considerate of my feelings," Adam says. "I prefer you stumbling around like a lumberjack making fun of me. It just feels weird otherwise."

"Can I get that in writing? That you actually enjoy me teasing the hell out of you?"

"Hell no," Adam says, chuckling. It breaks the surface of whatever awkward, ill-fitting pressure has iced over between them, nudging Adam to keep going. "By the way," he says. "You were right. By some miracle, your family actually doesn't hate me."

A tiny smile flits over Blake's face. "I told you they didn't."

"Yeah, you did," Adam says. "Mike even asked to do yoga with me this morning."

"I know. I was watching through the window."

"You were? Why didn't you come out?"

"'Fraid you were gonna rope me into joinin'."

Blake grins, the tension slipping off his face, and Adam can't help but do the same. That smile is fucking contagious. The comfort, that innate ease that they have with each other, that's still there. They can get back to it if they try.

Unless, well. They could always try going somewhere new instead.

"Listen," Blake says, setting the things in his hands down onto the dresser. "I just wanna tell you again—I'm sorry. None of this is how I wanted all this to turn out."

Adam shakes his head. He wants to plug his ears the minute Blake starts winding down this self-effacing road. He wants Blake to stop apologizing. He never wants to hear Blake bring this up and word it like Adam did him some great sacrificial hardship and that he would take it all back if he could, because that just isn't what happened, and Adam wouldn't take it back, not even to save himself all this internal drama. As hare-brained and immature and stupid as this entire pretense of holding hands and kissing and being together was, it made Adam come to terms with something, made him realize just how badly he wants this, wants _Blake_. And even if this doesn't work out, at least now he knows, now he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life wondering what that nagging feeling in the back of his head is whenever he looks at Blake and feels a little tight in the chest. He's had that feeling for fucking ever, just could never place it.

He thinks about what Blake told him in the airplane, how he's convinced that Adam is too chicken to make the first move. Dammit, he isn't.

"Blake, I swear, if you apologize one more time," he says, inhaling cautiously. He feels like this is the moment, this is his chance, he should just fucking go for it. "Fuck it."

He gets up off the bed and grabs Blake's elbow and just stops _thinking_ so goddamn much; he's been in his head so much these last few days, and maybe this isn't all that hard like he keeps thinking it is, maybe he doesn't have to brood over the best way to do this for weeks. Maybe Dorothy was right and it's honestly _simple_ , at least as long as he lets it be, so he pushes Blake against the old wooden wardrobe until the whole thing knocks against the wall, aware he's being rough but suddenly unable to be anything but, too much suppressed emotion demanding to be let out, and Adam does what his body is telling him to do and has for a while and kisses Blake straight on the mouth.

Blake makes a shocked little sound—a word, perhaps—and Adam swallows it. He just wants to do this, wants to do what he's been aching to do ever since he could only do it for pretend, but this, this is for real, and Adam wants it to be clear that it is. He tilts their lips together and delivers this like a real boyfriend, a real couple, one hand tight in Blake's hair and the other curled around the fabric on his shoulder, and presses himself close enough to feel Blake's chest rise up with a sharp inhale, vaguely comprehending that Blake is kissing him back.

The kiss simultaneously feels like it lasts for both centuries and nanoseconds. Adam pulls back just to breathe, and when he does, Blake is looking at him with wide, reverent eyes. His lips are a little wet, wet from Adam's mouth. _Shit, wow, I did that_ , Adam thinks, and fuck, he wants to do it again, but he should probably explain first.

"Don't be sorry," Adam says. His voice sounds a little funny, even to his own ears, just a smidgen higher than usual. "I'm not. I'm—" He stops to laugh, all of it suddenly hysterically funny. "I'm completely fucking in love with you."

"You—what?"

"I'm not saying it twice, asshole," Adam tells him. He goes to push himself away from Blake's chest, finding it's hard to think when Blake is just a few inches away, but realizes that Blake's arms are tight on his arms, keeping him close. "You heard me just fine."

"You love me?"

"Oh my god, shut up."

Adam leans in to kiss him again, something about the weak smile on Blake's face letting him know that it's a good idea. Blake makes another noise—less surprised, more pleased—and his hands travel over the expanse of Adam's back, hitching his shirt up, touching that jagged scar courtesy of the bike incident.

"You really love me?" Blake mumbles against Adam's insistent mouth. "God, tell me this isn't something my momma put you up to."

Adam has to pull away at that, but not before swiping his tongue over the bow of Blake's upper lip. He tastes like potato soup and shitty beer and Adam is getting stupidly weak in the knees just from feeling the hot slide of Blake's mouth against his.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he complains. "Stop talking about your mom while I have my tongue in your mouth."

"Just had to check," Blake says, leaning in to push their lips back together; maybe he finds it just as addictive as Adam. "Fuck, Adam, I thought I was taking advantage of you here."

"What?" Adam asks, already fumbling to undo a few of the buttons on Blake's shirt.

"Thought you hated this. Me kissing you, touching you. Only reason I told my family is 'cause I thought it's what you wanted."

"Oh, I hated it, all right," Adam says. "I had no fucking clue if it was for real or if you were just playing your—your _role_."

"Adam, I'm a terrible actor," Blake says, endearingly truthful, letting go of Adam's back to frame his face, his hands shockingly gentle, his every movement earnest. "It was for real. All of it was."

It's not an _I love you too_ , but Adam feels like it might as well be, his chest twisting with the realization that Blake wants this, Blake wants him too, and this ridiculous fake relationship might've actually been good for something.

They kiss again; it's like they're magnetized and can't stop now, their mouths moving against each other with increasing hunger. Blake's hands—God, his huge hands—are back to being spread wide on Adam's back to pull him in close, the warmth of his body spilling over, making Adam sweat, pushing him toward a fever that just makes him want harder, _want more_.

Blake seems to be on the same page, because he tugs Adam's bottom lip into his mouth and sucks on it just as his hands slide down to squeeze Adam's ass, palms broad enough to grip each cheek. The touch is electric, _promising_ , and Adam finds he's having a hard time breathing here with all this voltaic contact, fondling, _groping_ going on between them. Blake seems to be in the same boat, as he breaks away from Adam's mouth to catch his breath, his exhales heavy on Adam's jaw.

This is one of the hottest things Adam has ever done. He has no idea how, but it is; it's like they're teenagers necking upstairs while the parents are distracted downstairs, like they're kids making out for the first time, everything new and special and so goddamn arousing. He reels Blake back in to keep this going, keep the ball rolling, and then—

"Blake! Adam!" Mike's voice calls up the stairs, putting an abrupt stop to that escalating situation. "Dinner's gettin' cold down here, guys!"

Adam throws his head back with a groan, then leans his forehead against Blake's shoulder. Dinner is literally the last thing he's thinking about. As a matter of fact, his boner is currently doing all his thinking for him, and its priorities do not include sitting at a table with Blake's family passing a bowl of cole slaw around.

"Timing," Adam says, swearing under his breath, "literally could not be any worse."

"I don't know," Blake says with a breathless huff of laughter. "We could be naked."

"Don't," Adam says. "I'm gonna have a boner in front of your mother. I need to—" —not have images in his head of them naked and sweaty and panting and touching— "—calm the fuck down."

Blake's hands dig into Adam's hips, fingers flexing against them. "Maybe I like you all worked up."

They look at each other, Adam blazingly aware of that hungry look in Blake's eyes, and realizes that this is doing little to amend the boner situation.

Mike yells upstairs for them again. Adam pushes himself away from Blake—reluctantly, but honestly, being pressed up against him wasn't helping anybody—and smooths down his hair, his clothes, his _erection_ , and he realizes with a strangely satisfying twist to his stomach that Blake's doing the same next to him, all the while mentally cursing that they couldn't figure this all out and do this in the privacy of their own home, somewhere where no threat of interrupting family members exists.

Blake grabs his arm after Adam watches him all but whack-a-mole his dick into submission, and the look on his face is so intense Adam half expects Blake to throw him down on the bed and screw dinner, screw whoever's waiting for them downstairs, but instead he says, voice rough, "Later?" and it sounds like a promise.

"Hell yeah," Adam says. He wets his lips. "After?"

Blake nods. He leans in, smiling, and steals one last kiss. It feels invigoratingly like a bookmark put temporarily between them, one to get back to as soon as possible.

\--

Dinner is a complete nightmare.

Every time Adam so much as looks at Blake, he goes from docked to the harbor to half-mast, to say nothing of the goofy smile that he can't seem to wipe off his face. Blake's neck is red the entire time they eat, like maybe he's thinking about exactly the same stuff Adam is, like how fucking good getting their hands on each other felt, how fantastic it'll be to do it again. Adam is perfectly aware of the irony in the situation, namely that he and Blake have spent the better part of two weeks making a big show of flaunting a fake relationship in front of everybody, and now that there might be something authentic there, they're keeping it hidden like little kids with a secret.

Although he doubts it'll stay hidden much longer with the way Blake's hand keeps brushing against Adam's knee under the tablecloth when he thinks it'll be discreet. Honestly, all the goofy giggling and bright pink ears should be enough to tip everybody off already, although if they do know, nobody has the bad manners or the nosiness to bring it up.

The evening doesn't get any better when it refuses to end. Adam keeps dropping hints that he's exhausted and wants to call this an early night, looking for any possible exit route that'll excuse him and Blake to the guest room, but everybody is having none of Adam's hinting. It's like they're all working overtime to make it clear to Adam that he's still welcome here, elongating dinner into dessert and then board games and then late night TV, and as sweet as the sentiment is, Adam couldn't be itching any more here to put a plug on G-rated game night and drag Blake upstairs by the collar to pick up where they left off.

It's not until Mike mentions being beat that the evening seems to be nearing an end, and by the time Adam is finally headed upstairs, dick already half-hard in anticipation alone, Blake is caught in a conversation with his mother off to the side of the living room and doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that Adam is ready to drag him upstairs by the belt loops and spend all night mapping out every single part of Blake's body with his tongue. Ready and no longer patient.

He briefly catches Blake's eye over his mother's shoulder and tries to convey this message with a lingering look—that must leave some impact, too, because he can see Blake's face twitching even from all the way over by the staircase—before he disappears to the second floor and hustles into the guest room, sure that if Blake picked up even a little on his dirty bedroom eyes, he'll be giving himself the bum's rush to get up here.

If Adam wasn't so pent up after hours of having to sit still downstairs pretending he didn't want to rip off Blake's clothes, he might actually be nervous about this. The longer he sits in his room, restless on the edge of the bed, the more he realizes that he and Blake are probably going to have sex, in this room, possibly on the sheets he's sitting on, for an undetermined amount of time, and if Adam thought their friendship was tainted earlier, then this will surely be the nail in that coffin. He's pretty certain that there's no coming back after he's seen Blake naked and watched him come, assuming that's where they're headed, and _god_ does Adam hope that it is.

Eventually—eons seem to pass—Adam hears footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, heavy but quiet, awfully familiar, and then the bedroom door opens up, bathing the room in the hall's yellow lamplight, and Blake slides in.

"Took you long enough," Adam says.

"Sorry," Blake says, easing the door shut behind himself. He also locks it, which sends a message so clear it feels close to foreplay. "Momma wanted to talk to me. Well, more like give me a piece of her mind."

"A piece of her mind?"

Blake scratches his jaw, mouth forming into a tentative smile. "She was pretty upset with me for not telling you that I'm in love with you," he says. "And for, and I quote, playing with your heartstrings."

"Oh my _god_."

"I know," Blake says. He comes close to the bed and kneels in front of Adam. "But she had a point. So I just want to let you know that I love you. Like, really love you. And I wanna do this for real."

His hands reach out to curl over Adam's knees, thumbs brushing back and forth over his jeans. If this was anyone else, all of this would sound so stupidly cheesy, but somehow it all sounds genuine coming out of Blake's mouth, heart-grippingly so.

"I didn't realize what it was at first, but I kept—kept _feeling_ stuff the longer we were pretending and there were times when I forgot that we weren't really together and damn, it hurt," Blake continues. "I didn't think you—I mean, I just couldn't imagine—I just thought I was settin' myself up for heartbreak and didn't want to go down that road again, but I still wanted you to stay, even when you tried to go. I just wanted to keep this going a little while longer."

Adam can hardly believe how much Blake's side sounds like his own, how they've somehow been feeling exactly the same things ever since they stepped off that airplane and decided to do the immature, irresponsible thing and fool Blake's family into thinking they're into each other, and how they've somehow still landed on the same page now.

"So what I'm pretty much trying to say is," he says, squeezing Adam's knees, "I hope you don't mind if I sleep here tonight."

Adam rolls his eyes, yanking Blake up to his knees with a fistful of his shirt as leverage. 

"Are you kidding me?" he grumbles. "If you go and sleep on that couch, I'll kill you."

"Not in my momma's house," Blake says, grinning, his hands finding Adam's thighs. "She'd be devastated."

"Then if you want to keep her happy, I suggest you stay up here with me," Adam says. 

Blake chuckles, and Adam seizes his shirt and pulls until they're on the bed and Blake's on top of him, Blake's broad frame following his easily, willingly. The mattress bounces with their combined weight, and Adam parts his legs to have Blake slide between them, hips suddenly aligned and bodies molded together so perfectly Adam can feel everything from the quick heartbeat stuttering through Blake's chest to how hard he is in his pants—god, is he hard—and Adam cants his hips upward to show Blake that yeah, he is too. Blake's response is a shaky exhale right into his mouth, his hands tightening on Adam's sides, and at this rate, he's not sure this is even going to last that long if this is any indication of how good it'll all feel.

They keep kissing, unable to stop even when Adam's chest starts feeling low on oxygen, Blake's mouth firm and demanding against his own like he's trying to memorize the feel of it, or perhaps reveling in the fact that they're doing this for real, behind closed doors, for nobody but themselves. Blake's hips keep rutting forward against Adam's, and Adam can feel the thickness of his cock through the denim of his jeans every time he does, pushing currents of want through him that's leaving him straining for more, for them to be wearing infinitely less.

Adam's hands find the buttons on Blake's shirt, and they're just _infuriating_ , Adam's fingers unable to undo them, to turn them sideways just right and slide them through the holes, all because Blake is making these low, approving noises right in his mouth and distracting the hell out him. He finally just has to tilt away from Blake's lips to focus, already hot all over, and Blake immediately takes advantage of his exposed neck, getting to work giving him what must be the filthiest hickey on earth while Adam finally, _finally_ manages to yank that fucking shirt off his shoulders.

"You need to wear less of these," Adam demands, throwing the button-down aside and grabbing the hem of the top he has on underneath.

"Buttons too hard for you?" Black murmurs.

"Shut up," Adam says, grabbing his jaw and giving him another fierce kiss—he really can't help himself—before pulling back to yank Blake's tee over his head, Blake immediately following suit, scrambling hands tugging Adam's layers off a moment later.

Once they're both shirtless, the pace slows down for a second. Adam takes a moment to breathe and Blake's hand slides down his face, looking at him so intently, so carefully, like he's cataloging every detail of this, if not waiting to abruptly wake up and realize this isn't reality. He also looks unbelievably smitten, and okay, if this is the way he's been looking at Adam when Adam isn't paying attention, he's not all too surprised anymore that people weren't shocked to find out they were dating.

Fuck, does he look at Blake the same way?

"Something on your mind?" Blake asks, fingers touching the shell of his ear.

"Yeah," Adam says. "We're idiots."

He doesn't explain, he hardly even thinks he needs to. He just pulls Blake in again and they fall right back into place, Blake's fingers wandering down his arms, his elbows, his chest, before settling over his hips. He does all of it with so much purpose, so much _care_ , fingers downright quivering, that Adam is fucking berating himself for never thinking to do this sooner, because Jesus fucking Christ, Blake is good at this. Who would've even _thought_?

"God, this is," Adam says, words clumsy on his tongue. "This is _incredible_."

_You're incredible_ is what he thinks about adding, but he's pretty certain Blake knows that by now.

"So no cold feet?" Blake asks, pressing slow, careful kisses to Adam's lower lip, then his chin, then the curve of his jaw, and surely he's just being cheeky, because he must feel the way Adam's erection is practically bursting out of his pants.

"No," Adam tells him. "But this." His hands touch the bristles of Blake's facial hair. "This is going to take some getting used to."

Blake grins, thumb sweeping over Adam's lower lip. "You like it?"

Adam shrugs. It wouldn't feel right if he didn't give Blake at least a little shit, even during sex. "Eh. It's a little like rubbing sandpaper on my face."

"Don't worry," Blake says. "You'll grow facial hair someday. It'll happen."

Adam rolls his eyes, dragging Blake back into another open-mouthed kiss to occupy his tongue with more important things than sassing. He's actually enjoying the burn of Blake's beard, if he's being honest, the way it reminds him of exactly who he's doing this with just in case Blake's aftershave, Blake's familiar hands, and Blake's accent in his mouth aren't doing a good enough job of doing so. He touches Blake's belt, the cool metal of the buckle a sharp contrast to the way his skin feels like it's burning up.

"Turn around," he mumbles into the kiss, sinking his teeth down into Blake's lower lip and making him groan. He loves being under him like this, feeling the heat of his body, the shivers in his torso, the heartbeat from his chest, but he also really has a hankering to get on top of him.

Blake doesn't seem to have a problem with that. He rolls them around, Adam's legs falling cleanly around Blake's hips and straddling him, the bulge of Blake's erection straining through his pants and pushing into Adam's thigh and driving him a little bit crazy.

"You look good like this," Blake says, voice a little hoarse. 

"Like what?"

"On top of me." Blake's hands trail over the tattoos on his chest, thumb pressing into some to watch the skin stretch and turn around the ink. "And, y'know. Pantin' like a dog in heat."

"I'm going to ignore that last bit," Adam says, because he's feeling generous and also really wants to taste the skin of Blake's stomach.

He indulges in himself on that front, dipping down and licking over Blake's abdomen, hands touching the trail of hair slipping down into his jeans—and that's it, those are going to have to go.

He drags Blake's pants off his legs, belt clinking as it goes, and licks his lips, touching the freshly exposed skin of Blake's thighs. He runs his hands up his knees, further up, and then his thumb encounters a tiny jagged roughness in his skin right underneath the line of his underwear on his thigh.

"Your scar?" Adam asks, grinning. "The only with the really stupid story?"

"It's a real good story, actually," Blake says, his laughter a little breathless. "But I have the feeling now isn't the best moment for story time."

"I'll take stories of your stupidity literally any time, Blake," Adam says, resisting the urge to wink. "You could tell me while I blow you. Keep me entertained."

"Not sure I could concentrate through that," Blake admits, his hand sliding down to cup the back of Adam's neck, stroking it. "But long story short, a fishing rod is not as innocent as it looks."

"Jesus Christ. Just when I thought you couldn't be any more of a hick."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Blake says, smile wide.

Adam shuts him up with a well-timed bite to the thigh, strangely determined to mark Blake up in as many places as possible, places no one will see, places Blake doesn't usually show to anybody. He pulls Blake's underwear down, and his mouth very nearly waters when he sees his hard dick, thicker than he expected and just begging to be taken into Adam's mouth. He never even knew that that was something he ever wanted to do, suck a guy's cock, but now he's looking at Blake's dick and can't really focus on anything else. First time for everything, and all that.

Blake's impatience gets in the way of Adam drawing him into his mouth and seeing how it feels to have his cock rest against his tongue, his hands reaching and tugging at Adam's shoulders before he can try.

"I was—hey! I was trying to suck you off here."

"Next time," Blake promises, pulling Adam back up the bed with sweaty hands. "You're still wearin' too much." He pushes Adam onto his back and attaches his mouth to his neck, tongue licking over the day-old stubble there while his fingers work away on Adam's jeans. "Get this off."

Adam can't fault him too much for his eagerness, not when he's pretty much just as aroused, excited, and ready to be completely naked. He kicks his pants off the second Blake gets them down past his hips, shoving his underwear down directly afterwards since there's really no point in delaying the inevitable here. Blake swears, the words almost lost in his heavy breath, and takes Adam's length into his hand, his mouth finding Adam's while he gives him a slow stroke, getting a feel for the weight of him before venturing down to cup his balls. Adam swears then too, his body seizing with the unexpected pleasure.

For a quick moment after that, Blake's dry thumb brushes over his entrance, and the touch must get him just as worked up as it does Adam, whose hips stutter and eyes close, because Blake pulls back from his lips and props himself up just enough that Adam can see the want clear in his eyes, pupils dark.

"Shit, Adam, do you have anything?"

"No," Adam grumbles. "Why the fuck would I bring lube and condoms to your parent's house?"

"Shot in the dark," Blake says, then shakes his head, hands tightening on Adam's hips. "It's okay. Not like there isn't other stuff we can do."

"Yeah? What do you have in mind?"

Blake's eyebrows twitch upwards for a second, his mouth twisting into a smirk that Adam's seen a million times before but never like this, never up close, and he's not sure how he'll ever be able to see that cocky smile on his face again without immediately associating it with this moment, with being breathless and eager together in a tiny bed. For whatever reason, Adam was pretty sure that Blake would be a cut and dry kind of guy with sex, too much of a fan of the old-fashioned classics to bring any creativity to the table, but he feels like he's about to be proven wrong. _Hard_.

"Can I try something?" Blake asks, hands pressed into the V of Adam's hips. He licks his lips, and yeah, Adam can't really imagine denying him anything at this point.

"Yeah, okay."

Blake grins, encouraged, and slides his hands to the back of Adam's knees, pushing them up and folding them toward Adam's chest. He might be new at this sex-with-men thing, but he doesn't show his inexperience in the least, his enthusiasm more than making up for any uncertainties he might have. Adam watches as Blake sucks a slow, patient line of kisses down the back of his left leg, murmuring words that sound like praise into his skin as he goes, and then without much warning, his mouth moves further south and his tongue touches Adam's entrance.

Adam's hips buck into the air; he doesn't even know how to properly react here. He never would've thought—then again, these entire last few weeks have been nothing but Blake doing things he thought he never would, so maybe he shouldn't be so surprised that Blake is apparently super adventurous in bed. His tongue works its way into Adam's hole without hesitation, like he knows what he wants and he's not going to stand in his own way, and Adam can do little but throw his head back, hope the pillow catches him, and moan. He's been pretty experimental with sex ever since he started doing it, but he's never done this before, and it almost baffles him that Blake of all people is the one to introduce him to a tongue on his ass.

He's also incredibly _talented_ with it. For as much as he teases when they're fully dressed, Blake doesn't seem to have any interest in teasing him here and now, each of his movements deliberate, almost hungry. His tongue traces Adam's rim and pushes inside with an insistence that leaves him panting, licking at his entrance until it's wet and his legs are shaking.

Then, in one smooth push, one of Blake's fingers—and holy shit, he's never appreciated how long and thick and perfect they are until just now—slides into him, the sensation like a bolt of lightning shooting up Adam's spine. Blake eases it in up to the knuckle, pressing against him, feeling him.

"Blake," he groans, the stretch a shock he wasn't expecting. He can't think of any other words to intelligibly say, only Blake's name and a few favored expletives making it to the front of his brain, but Blake seems to get it all anyway. " _Fuck_ , Blake."

"I got you," Blake says, and his voice is so raspy Adam thinks it should be declared illegal, the drag of it up his throat making it that much harder for Adam to rein himself in. Blake pulls his finger out and replaces it immediately with his tongue, the way he moves it downright _obscene_ , lapping over Adam's hole and licking his way in and flattening over the skin while his hand wraps around Adam's length. He squeezes the base before he starts stroking, the large broadness of his palm driving Adam crazy. 

The demanding, insistent push of his tongue against Adam's hole is a total contrast to the slow, steady pace he keeps with his hand, pulling and pushing Adam between speeding toward orgasm and holding back. He can't decide what to lean into, to arch into the palm on his dick or grind down against the tongue inside him, frustrated, breathless moans working his way out of him in response.

Blake makes it just that much better by hitching Adam's leg over his shoulder for better access, free hand briefly pressing into the jump of the muscles in Adam's thigh as he sucks on the inner side of Adam's leg, the facial hair on his cheeks rough and _different_ where it's scratching against Adam's skin.

"Talk to me," he murmurs into Adam's leg, the hand on Adam's cock slowing down even further and pulling Adam closer to madness, hips spasming. "Is it—I can't tell if—"

"Does it look like I'm not having a good time here," Adam gasps, the words snapping out of him. He curls his hands into fists, desperate to hold onto something and _tug_ , and one hand finds Blake's hair while the other grabs hold of the sheets. He looks down at where Blake is between his legs—and yes, dear god, he doesn't ever want to forget what that looks like—and sees that Blake's grinning a little now, reddened mouth tipping upwards.

"Just making sure," Blake says, then dips in to drag his tongue back over Adam's clenching hole, a thirsty little noise easing out of his throat as he does so that alone almost makes Adam come.

The hand on his cock speeds up after that, squeezing just right on the upstroke, and Adam lets his head tilt back against the pillows and his eyes flutter shutter and just _enjoys_ , his fingers weakening in Blake's hair the closer he gets, closer, closer, so fucking close. Blake's tongue is so hot and insistent and his hands are so firm and commanding and Adam doesn't stand a chance, not even a little. His back aches to arch off the bed and it very nearly does when Blake's thumb starts rubbing over his entrance again, every part of him _keening_ to feel him inside, all of him, somewhere where they can be loud and honest and take as much time as they want. Soon, he thinks, so soon.

"Blake," Adam says when he starts to feel himself tip to the edge, his abdomen getting tight, a demanding coil of heat twisting his stomach. " _Aah_ , right there. Yeah, _please_ , c'mon."

Blake says something, Adam not quite catching the words, but the slight hum of his mouth against his thigh is what makes Adam come, a soft, helpless cry leaking out of his lips and thighs trembling with the force of it all while Blake strokes him through it, mumbling by his leg all the while, little things like _so good_ and _God, you're amazing_ that put a lazy smile on Adam's face.

"Come up here," Adam says when he has to push Blake's hand away, too sensitive to the touch, and reaches for his arms. "Blake."

Blake slides back up the bed without having to be told twice, but not without making a few stops first, lips making a hot trail up his chest and mouth closing over Adam's left nipple, drawing a few gasps out of his sated body along the way.

"How was that?" Blake asks when he's satisfied, ducking back into Adam's neck to kiss at the skin right under his ear, clearly a favorite spot of his. "Out of the box enough for you?"

"Yes," Adam confesses, too blissed out to bother with throwing out a witty response. "But next time, I want you fucking me."

"Jesus," Blake breathes out on his neck, pressing kiss after reverent kiss there, his stubble rough against the underside of Adam's jaw. "Sounds good to me."

Literally the moment Adam is out of this bed, he is going to stock up on so much lube and condoms that he might have trouble fitting it all in his suitcase, but right now, he's going to focus on repaying the favor and taking in how Blake looks when he comes, his hand wrapping around Blake's cock. He's considering sliding down the bed and trying his hand at sucking dick again when Blake grabs his bicep, squeezing.

"Like this," he says, voice hoarse. "I want—I want to look at you."

"Yeah, okay," Adam agrees.

He keeps pumping him, alternating between firm grips and soft strokes, touching Blake like he would do it to himself, switching up his rhythm whenever he feels Blake get too used to one, mesmerized by the sound of Blake's hitched inhales each time he does. 

It doesn't take long after that, Adam knows it won't. He can hear it in the urgency of Blake's breathing, the whispered words that stumble out of his rasping throat, the hiccuping of his body as every part of him seems to arch and curl into Adam's touch. He comes between them, spilling onto Adam's chest, lips parted and eyes shut with just the barest hint of sweat by his hairline, and Adam is so fucking enamored by this that he's already excited to do this all again, to rip each other's clothing off and go fast, and then slow, and rough, and then soft, and try out every little whim and urge and want they have together. He kisses the corner of Blake's mouth, the hint of a dimple, unable to help himself, and Blake responds in kind by catching Adam's mouth and kissing back until their lips are swollen. Their kisses fade off slowly, a satisfied sleepiness taking over their bodies after lazily slotting their lips together for another ten minutes.

"Here," Blake says when he pulls back, twisting off the bed and looking for something on the floor until he returns with Adam's tee, using it to clean them both up.

"Is that—did you take my shirt for this, you dick?"

"Relax, I'll get it cleaned."

"You fucking better."

Blake chuckles and then quiets him with another long kiss, the kind that makes Adam forget all about his shirt or drycleaning debts Blake now owes him or even just words in general, every bit of his vocabulary slowly leaking out of his brain as Blake sucks on his lower lip.

"When we get home," Blake promises in his ear, his hand possessive on Adam's hip, "I'm not gonna let you leave the bed until you walk funny, you got that?"

Adam grins, not just because of the dirty sentiment, which he of course appreciates, but also because of how Blake says home, how he sticks the _we_ in front of it and it just sounds right. Adam doesn't even know where he's referring—his house, Blake's place, California—but he doesn't need the specification, not when it feels like home could be anywhere, really, as long as they're both there. It's so fucking sappy Adam refuses to say it out loud, but he has a feeling he might be doing a lot of songwriting soon with thoughts like these scattered throughout the lyrics. He doesn't know what it'll sound like, but he has pieces at the forefront of his mind— _it's right with you. It's like home with you. It's always meant something with you._

"That better be a promise," Adam says, his mouth starting to ache from the smiling he can't quite stop. "Anything less and I'll be forced to file complaints, Shelton."

"Gotcha," Blake says, and then without warning, he slides his way back down Adam's body and nips over the canal of his chest, tongue flattening over the slight sting of his teeth.

Adam's sated body, already transitioning into slow and sleepy post-sex relaxation, jolts at the unexpected scrape of Blake's teeth against his chest. "What are you doing?" he asks, breath catching.

"You didn't think I was already done with you, did you?" Blake asks, grinning, somehow managing to take Adam's worn out body and spark it back to life, midsection already heating up as blood rushes back downward. Jesus Christ, what is he, a teenager? This would be embarrassing if it didn't feel _so good_.

"Okay, and—ah—when will you be done?" Adam asks, hands reaching for Blake's sides. 

"Never," Blake swears, and Adam realizes he now knows how it feels to have that curve of Blake's lips, the shape of his smile, pressed against his skin.

\--

It's ridiculous how amazing this feels. By one a.m., Adam is officially convinced that this is what their bodies were built for, specifically to have this sweaty, dirty, fantastic sex with each other.

He thought he was pretty familiar with Blake's body after knowing him for so long, standing next to him, sitting in his lap, but _fuck_ , was he wrong. He had never actually appreciated all the important bits before, like how fucking sexy it is when Blake hunches over him and Adam can really take in just how broad his frame is, or just how illegal his mouth looks after Adam has bitten his lower lip red and raw, or just how _long_ his legs are, especially when they're braced around Adam's hips after he's climbed on top of him. And he's fairly certain that this is only the beginning and there's a lot still left to discover about Blake's body. Shit, is he excited.

They're both fairly sexed out by the time two a.m. hits, at which point all of Adam's at-the-ready jokes intending to jab at Blake's sexual stamina have fallen by the wayside because _fuck_ , Blake did not disappoint. 

"Did you ever think about this?" Adam asks, watching Blake's face in the dark, the sweat-slick curls touching his forehead, while he lies next to him, naked and warm. "Before we lied about it?"

"A few times," Blake admits. He's playing with Adam's fingers, touching his knuckles, slotting his own in between. "Kinda couldn't help it after everybody brought it up so many damn times."

"Mm." Adam refuses to accept that any of those hounds masquerading around as reporters actually knew something they didn't, saw something in them they were blind to, but he can't deny that all this definitely could've happened sooner if he had actually considered why all those resilient bromance rumors worked so well for so long.

"Gotta say, I never pictured it like this," Blake admits. "At least, it being this _good_."

"Good, huh?" Adam asks. "So you wanna do it again?"

"Hell yeah," Blake says without even a second of hesitation. His hand squeezes Adam's. "Like, all the time. I'm actually a little worried about an incomin' addiction here."

"Doesn't sound like a problem to me," Adam says. 

"'S not," Blake agrees. "Y'know, I was kinda jealous when you told me about that guy you kissed. Kept thinkin' that I was just angry that there you went havin' this wild childhood while I was throwin' a basketball into a tree for fun, but really, I just wanted to know if it was better with me. If kissin' me was nicer."

Adam snorts, tilting his head to look over at him, at his hopelessly honest expression. He can't believe he's still this easily fired up after so many orgasms, but all he wants to do right now is climb onto Blake's lap and make out with him until they fall asleep.

"You improved," he says. "But if you want to convince me that you're the best, I won't try and stop you."

"Oh, you little. You think you're damn funny, don't you?"

Blake rolls on top of Adam, these ridiculous giggles that Adam can't even stop coming out of his throat that Blake seems to swallow right up, pinning his wrists to the bed and claiming his mouth with his own, kissing him so thoroughly, so soundly that Adam has all his at-the-ready comebacks stolen out of his throat.

\--

Adam had hoped to wake up the next day with soft, gentle reminders of the night before, like Blake leaving lazy, open-mouthed kisses up his neck while slowly pumping Adam's length to wake him, which is really only one of many preferable scenarios. What he gets instead is a banshee scream jolting him awake and Endy barging into their room without warning and nearly shocking him into an early grave. 

"Oh gosh," she says, voice a high squeak that promptly dissolves into laughter while Adam jerks awake and his heart nearly stops beating. Behind him, Blake's body jumps, apparently going through the same rough awakening. 

"Jesus Christ," Blake grumbles, arm tightening around Adam as the shock seems to settle out of his body. Adam realizes, caught somewhere between affection and complete horror, that Blake's spooning him, chest warm against Adam's back, and the sheets only come up to their bellies, exposing their stark naked torsos, which must paint quite a scandalous picture that doesn't need much explanation. "Don't y'all knock or is that just too damn polite for you?"

"I did knock, just so you know," Endy says. She sounds awfully amused, still laughing a little. "Like ten times. Thought someone dead must be in there."

"Not dead," Adam says. Can he die right here anyway? Is that something that might possibly happen, death from extreme embarrassment after being caught cuddled up and startlingly naked with someone's brother? His neck is _ablaze_.

"I can see that," Endy drawls. "You know, y'all don't have to do this anymore. You came clean. We know it's a big fat ruse."

"Well, not anymore, now screw off," Blake says, and for as gruff as he sounds, Adam is pretty sure he's burning up in humiliation too. "We need sleep."

"Oh, I'll bet you do."

" _Endy_ , dear lord."

She cackles, shutting the bedroom door, and even through the barrier of the wood, they can hear her smug laughter.

"Well," Blake says, sounding as if he's caught somewhere between resigned that that happened and still totally mortified, just like Adam. So much for a little morning afterglow in the sweet early sun. "How long do you think it'll take before news spreads?"

"Oh, it's spread," Adam says, just like that scorching heat that's now traveling down his back. "Like wildfire, I'm guessing."

"Great," Blake says. He ducks his nose into the nape of Adam's neck, grumbling. "Your family. Think they'd be a little less impossible than mine?"

"Worse, I'm guessing," Adam says, twisting around until they're face-to-face, foreheads touching. He can already imagine the ridicule his own siblings would've delivered had they been the ones to catch Adam and Blake like this. He's guessing endless laughter, immediate picture snapping, and then printing out said pictures to pin to the fridge.

Blake pulls him out of these particularly disturbing thoughts by brushing his fingertips across Adam's forehead, sweeping errant hair back into place. Adam looks up at him, taking in their close proximity, the warmth of Blake's leg wedged between his knees, the extreme blue of his eyes. Fuck, is this nice. Adam has the ridiculously romantic passing thought that he hopes every morning can be even just a little bit as comfortable as this one is in the future.

"Hey, morning," Blake says, like he's just now noticed that they're both nude and pressed against each other and spent most of last night making each other come. He's a little pink in the ears. "You doin' all right?"

It occurs to Adam that Blake might be a little nervous here. "Yeah?"

"Good. Just, y'know. Wanted to make sure I didn't tucker you out too bad last night."

Adam snorts, unable to keep the laughter down. Blake is really the least smooth, most ludicrous, biggest loser he knows, and his pillow talk is on a whole new level of dumb. Nonetheless, he still winds his arm around Blake's waist and leans in for a slow, languorous kiss, their mouths still warm from sleep.

"I liked it," Adam says. There's a small red mark on his jaw that Adam can't quite look away from that he knows he's responsible for and is bizarrely proud of. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Eh, maybe I just like hearing you inflate my ego."

"Sounds about right." He rubs his thumb into that spot on Blake's jaw, gently touching it while he considers that he might look just as debauched. The idea is more appealing than it should be.

"You know this is our last day here, right?" Blake reminds him.

"Yeah. Kind of a shame," Adam says. This trip didn't turn out even _remotely_ like he thought it would, and he had been dreading it ever since Blake first told him about it, but now that it's almost over, he's a little sad to leave. It was fun. Enlightening. And even randy in all the right places. Pre-Oklahoma-Trip-Adam never could've known or prepared for what was in store for him. "I enjoyed myself."

"Ah, I knew it. We'll work a little Midwestern into that west coast blood of yours."

"That," Adam says, grinning, "would take a long, long while."

"I got time," Blake tells him, words soft, and leans in to give him another kiss.

\--

They leave much, much later than they should've according to schedule, thanks to long goodbyes and drawn-out hugs that they really should've both seen coming.

It's heartwarming, the way Blake's family seems just as sad that Adam's leaving as they are about Blake. It's subtle, but there's a difference, a _closeness_ that wasn't quite there between them when Adam met them just as one of Blake's buddies versus as his boyfriend.

His boyfriend. His real life, not kidding around this time boyfriend. Adam is still a little in awe.

"Now, you don't be a stranger, you hear?" Dorothy says, eyes misty as she pats Adam on the cheek. "Take care of each other."

"Yes, ma'am," Adam tells her, returning the tight embrace she gives him before Endy swoops in, whispering to him to do his best to keep Blake good and happy. Vaguely, with the other ear, he hears Dorothy tell Blake the same thing about Adam, which makes a sweet warmth crawl up his chest and curl up there.

They luckily don't miss their flight by the time they finally make it to the airport, managing to check into the gate with just enough time to spare. They're just about the last in line to board the plane, followed only by the stand-by stragglers given the okay to join the flight, but the important part is that they don't miss it.

Adam slides on his favorite sweatshirt and hitches the hood up over his head, leaning into the warmth of Blake's shoulder when his arm winds around him, easy as always, as they walk their way through the jetway.

"So," he says, fingers find the hand of the arm Blake has slung over his shoulders. "What do you say to you coming to see my family next?"

"You mean, like for Hanukkah?"

He shrugs. "Yeah. Or, you know. Next weekend."

"Okay," Blake says. "And this." He points between them. "That somethin' you wanna share with them?"

"Yeah. You want to?"

"I want to."

Adam squeezes his hand for a moment, turning just in time to see the overwhelming fondness on Blake's face that makes it obvious that he's totally fine with that idea. Adam, feeling a similar fondness sweep over him, one he's felt many times before but has finally, _finally_ come to understand, tugs him closer and pulls him in for a kiss, one for nobody else but them.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my biggest problems here, believe it or not, was figuring out whether or not to classify Oklahoma as the South or the Midwest. Now, I'm not too far from Oklahoma (I live in Kansas), but I did check with a few friends who grew up there, all of whom were adamant in telling me it's the Midwest.
> 
> Song is from Dan Croll's song Home, which is very sweet and has lyrics that fit the story very nicely.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Feels Like Home (fanmix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8680117) by [amadnesskinks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amadnesskinks/pseuds/amadnesskinks)




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